


Dusk To Dawn

by Reighost



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Angst, Canon derailment, Character Death, F/M, Gen, M/M, Slash, future fluff, mature themes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-30
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-02-11 03:19:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 93,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2051655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reighost/pseuds/Reighost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Potter’s life reached its end, turned to dusk and Sawada Tsunayoshi’s life has yet to begin. A Sky from Dusk to Dawn. Harry reincarnated as Tsuna.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This Plot Bunny literally jumped me out of nowhere and ambushed my face ala Facehugger. Wouldn’t let me go till I finished writing! And of course I had to SHARE the idea with Araceil who had an idea of her own… XD
> 
> Just like how I stole(with permission) the original plot bunny for Under Wing Araceil has made off with the Plot Bunny for THIS fic, (like an anime panty-thief), and has run off cackling into the sunset with it(She also has permission). She’s written her own version, a Twin-fic to this one where Harry doesn’t die and Tsuna remains just Tsuna. Go read it on fanfiction.net, it’s called Brightly Burning. Mine is done mostly from Harry’s Pov, Araceil’s is done mostly from Reborn’s Pov.

Harry knew he didn’t have a lot of time left.

Fresh from the battle of Hogwarts he felt something off about himself. The way he moved. The way his body responded to him and more alarming was the way his magic was acting. The warmth that had been with him his entire life felt like it was seeping out of his every pore. He couldn’t get warm enough. Exhaustion was constant. He couldn’t sleep enough to recoup what he lost during the day and he couldn’t drink enough Pepper Up to combat the loss.

Ignoring the niggling sense of unease had been easy during the first few days after defeating Voldemort. Everyone was tired. However as people began to recover and get dismissed from Madam Pomfrey’s care a strong sense of discomfort lodged itself inside his chest and wouldn’t move. He wasn’t alright. He wasn’t recovering despite Madam Pomfrey’s insistence on continued bed rest.

The knowledge came to him from somewhere between a gut feeling and a voice of instinct. He just knew. He was dying. It was a truth he felt right down to his very core. He was dying and he didn’t have a lot of time left. Madam Pomfrey, distracted and exhausted herself, wouldn’t be able to save him and he knew she wouldn’t have been able to save him had she been in perfect health.

He’d been living on borrowed time, sixteen more years than he would have if his mother hadn’t sacrificed herself for him, and now he was running out. The Deathly Hallows had bought him enough time to kill Voldemort but it seemed like their fabled ability to cheat death was a temporary thing.

Leaving Hogwarts had been an easy decision and in the end he slipped away unnoticed. If he didn’t have that much time left… then he was just going to have to use the time he had left wisely.

OoO

The goblins at Gringotts weren’t happy to see him when he first arrived but they let him in the doors. Handing Gryffindor’s Sword over to the guards that barred his way into the bank went a long way into soothing the feathers he’d ruffled stealing Voldemort’s Horcrux out of Bellatrix’s vault. He had a will written up. It was a simple thing that left everything he owned to the Weasleys, Teddy, Hermione and set up a trust fund for any magical children that Dudley or any of Dudley’s children might have. Along with a few letters he spent the last few days writing he left his wand with the goblins and handed over his vault keys. He wasn’t going to be needing them.

He left the bank with several thousand pounds of muggle money in his pocket and stumbled out into the muggle world and into the first high-end clothing store he found. He walked out leaving the a good chunk of his money behind, the pyjamas he’d been wearing and the cloak he’d pilfered from Pomfrey. If he was going to die it might as well be in comfortable style.

What would everyone think of him? Dying right after earning himself the first breath of freedom he’d ever enjoyed? How laughably tragic.

Shivering into the thick folds of his new great coat Harry took a moment to admire his reflection as he walked past a boutique. He’d never worn anything like this in his life, the closest he came to it was his school uniform and even that was a far and distant cry from the suit he was wearing. Would he appear like this in front of his family? Wouldn’t that surprise his parents, hell he surprised himself by ‘cleaning up so nice’ as the shop attendant had crooned at him. Remus would smile and Sirius would probably laugh at him for getting so gussied up.

Too bad the thickness of his coat wasn’t doing much to alleviate the cold seeping into his body despite it’s obviously high quality. The store attendant hadn’t been surprised at his request for the warmest clothing they had in the store, the rain outside had given him excuse enough for it. The attendant had almost gasped at what he’d been wearing once he’d removed his cloak and had hurried to dress him once it was clear he had the money to afford the clothing he was attempting to buy.

One short lie, “My luggage was stolen from the airport!”, and he was dressed in a charcoal suit with a light grey waistcoat, crisp white shirt, a warm orange tie (the closest he could get to Gryffindor red in the store) and a gold tie pin, a great coat a shade darker than the suit he was wearing, thick socks patterned with birds and polished black dress shoes. The finishing touch to the entire outfit was a handsome black fedora with an orange band matching the colour of his tie. Looking into a mirror after getting changed and he could hardly recognize himself. The shop assistants had been thoroughly impressed and one of the them had even tried to convince him to go out and get some new glasses.

“A frameless pair.” The man insisted as he balled up his old clothing into a plastic bag to be thrown away. “Or contact lenses, your eyes are too gorgeous to hide behind such bulky lenses!”

“I’ll think about it.” Harry lied easily as he accepted a cream coloured scarf to wrap around his neck and tugged on a pair of thick gloves. Like his eyes were going to be a problem for much longer.

Now he was wandering around Muggle London. With no idea what to do with himself now that he’d settled his affairs and was now free to do whatever he wanted. What would a teenager his age do with himself at this time of night? With the amount of money he had… should he go out and watch a movie or something? Or considering his current form of sharp dress should he go and find himself a restaurant?

Stopping abruptly outside a bar Harry snorted to himself. Right, he knew what he wanted to do. He was going to drink away the last few hours of his life, maybe the alcohol would chase away some of the cold, he was close to shivering now. First of all though… there was something he needed to do. Needed to get off his chest.

Searching the room he’d stepped into his eyes swept along the walls before locating the payphone near the bar, uncaring of the furnishings or interior save for the fact it had what he was looking for. Pausing only long enough to beg change from the bored looking bartender Harry hurried over and fed the machine and punched out the Dursley’s number. Might as well clear the air while he was still alive to do so.

The phone rang out and Harry belatedly realized that the Dursleys must still be in whatever safe-house the Order had stashed them away in. Leaning his head against the wall near the phone he gave himself a moment to wish that the Dursleys had an answering machine before he pulled out the phone book sitting on the little shelf next to the phone so he could start looking up names. If he couldn’t reach the Dursleys then he’d just have to think outside the box. Piers was Dudley’s friend, would probably continue to be friends with him when his cousin returned home.

He knew from an overheard conversation between his Aunt and Mrs Polkiss that the woman had ‘invested’ in an answering machine. Did they still have one? Punching in the number he found in the phone book Harry lifted the receiver up to his ear and waited, absently stacking the coins the barkeep had given him into a small tower.

“Hello. You have reached the household of the Polkiss family. Unfortunately we cannot take your call right now, but we would like to return it as soon as we can. So please leave your name, number and message after the beep and we’ll get right back to you.”

“Don't pick up the phone, Piers! Please.” He immediately said at the prompt, somehow knowing that on the other end of the phone call that Piers Polkiss was a hairs breadth from picking up. “I… I don't think I'll be able to say… what I need to if there's... someone there. It's Harry. Dudley's cousin. I uh... I don't have a forwarding address for them so, I'm hoping that you'll be able to pass this message onto them since... I don't really have much longer left. Please tell them that it's safe now. The guys who killed Mum and Dad are gone, they caused a lot of damage, but we got them in the end so it's safe now, you can come home.” Pausing to take a deep breath he continued.

“I’m sorry Dudley, but it doesn't look like we'll be able to make another go at trying to be family. I uh... I got hurt. Badly. And uh... well, I REALLY don't have much longer left. A day. Maybe two. Tops. I'm getting worse every hour, I can FEEL it. And... there's nothing much the He-Doctors can do. So. I just wanted to say my goodbyes while I could. So, thanks, thank you for trying in the end. It... it meant a lot. Surprisingly. I was actually looking forward to trying again clean. But it seems like... That won't be possible. I set a little bit of money aside at the bank, my bank, just in case any of your children, or grandchildren, or even their grandchildren, ever come to my school. Hopefully things will be better for them there than me once they've finished rebuilding it.”

Closing his eyes for a bit Harry fiddled with the phone cord. He had more to say, so much more but he didn’t exactly have a lot of time for it. An answering machine could only record so much before it ran out of memory. “Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon, we've never gotten along. I think mutual loathing would be the proper term for it but... thank you for taking me under your roof. You at least managed to give me ten years without that murderer chasing me, ten years of being just me, ten years of - I guess, toughening me up. If it hadn't been for that, I might not have lasted this long so... thanks, I guess. I wish things could have worked out between us, properly. I would have liked to call you family, but… I guess those sorts of things are out of reach now.” He said the last part mostly to himself, voice trailing off towards the end of the sentence.

Shaking the melancholy mood off of himself he continued on with the last words he’d ever be able to speak to the only family he had left. “Aunt Petunia, I checked Mum's Will, she left you a few pieces of jewellery so, if my friend Hermione drops by, don't worry, she's just giving them to you. She's a lot like mum so please, try to be nice. Her parents went missing and they're still looking for them. Well... I think that's it for me. I should hang up before I use up all of Piers' answer machine memory.” he said, leaning a shoulder against the wall as he absently fed coins into the phone just in case he ran out of credit.

“Thank you for letting me say my goodbye Piers.” He said finally, straightening up from where he’d started to lean up against the wall, this time speaking to the teenager who was no doubt listening to this on the other end of the phone. “Good luck to you too. I don't know what you've been up to, or what you plan to do, but I hope you manage it. Grow up to be a good man. Not the little shit I grew up with.” he finished with a short laugh as he imagined the look on the boy’s face at those words. “Oh, and before I forget, Good luck with your Boxing career Dudley. You have a killer right hook. Use it well. I didn't spend all those years helping you practice for nothing... Goodbye.”

Harry sagged against the wall when he hung up and fought against the wave of dizziness washed over him as his magic flickered like the last embers of a dying flame. Two days? That had been an overly generous estimate. At the rate his magic was draining away from him… he was left with hours, not days. He… wasn’t even going to last long enough to see the sunrise.

Waiting for the worst of the dizziness to subside he slid into the closest seat nearby and propped his elbows up on the bar, taking his glasses off and rubbing a tired hand over his eyes. When he finally lifted his head and slipped his glasses back on he realised he’d sat in a seat right next to someone already seated at the bar but couldn’t find the energy to move, he gave the man a silent smile in apology but the man merely shrugged and turned back to his drink, seemingly uncaring that a stranger had popped right into his personal bubble.

“What can I get you?” a voice asked and Harry looked up at the barkeeper.

“Um… I’ll have… what he’s having.” He replied, pointing to the dark haired man sitting at his elbow. The man seemed to be enjoying whatever he was drinking, savouring each sip and drinking in slow, deliberate mouthfuls. The dark haired man sitting next to him snorted and reached his glass forwards to clink against the one the bartender soon had on the bar in front of him.

“Aged scotch. Not a bad choice.” The man remarked as he pulled his glass back, a smirk curling up his face.

“… thanks?” Harry blinked, reaching for his glass and drinking down a mouthful.

He regretted it immediately.

Fire burned down his throat. He coughed and spluttered around his hand. Hastily setting his glass down he groped blindly for the wad of napkins the amused looking bartender had left for him, apparently haven foreseen his reaction and prepared for it, and tried to regain his breath. Some of what he’d coughed out had taken the next best escape route when he’d covered his mouth, even his _nasal_ passages were now joining in on feeling like they’d been set on fire!

“ _You… are a… b-bas… tard_.” Harry coughed out painfully, eyes watering at the sensation as the man sitting next to him laughed in his face.

“Puppy.” The man returned, stealing the drink he’d just abandoned and taking a very pointed sip from it. “Drinks like this are meant to be _savoured_ , not knocked back like water.” The man smirked again as Harry signalled the barkeeper down for a glass of water and tried to clean himself off and control his breathing.

“S… savour away.” Harry wheezed, waving the glass away when the man made as if to offer it back to him to try again. Accepting the glass of water from the barkeeper he drained it completely and handed it back. “I’ll try something with a little less… punch.”

“Suit yourself.” The man said as he pulled the glass back.

“God that was awful.” Harry complained as wiped the last traces of alcohol off his face and clothes, mopping up the worse of it. “Why would you even drink something like that?”

“Because I’m not a cultureless brat?” the man replied sarcastically, the smirk on his face growing. “Try picking from the children’s menu, their drinks aren’t likely to kill you.”

Harry plucked the drink back out of the man’s hands at that and took a small cautious sip, wincing at the burn but managing to drink the small amount down. “A drink isn’t going to kill me when I’m already dying.” He said, coughing a bit as he looked the man dead in the eye. “Might as well try it while I still can.”

The man stared at him for a long moment and Harry turned away and back to his drink to try another cautious sip. He HAD been looking for something to chase away the cold and he’d certainly found something that fit the bill, he just hadn’t expect it to be quite so potent. Warmth curled through his system and settled in his stomach, it didn’t affect his magic in any way and he could still feel the same drain but now… he wasn’t feeling the accompanying cold that he’d been feeling since waking up from getting hit by the Killing Curse.

“… dying?” the man sitting next to him asked quietly, dark eyes raking up and down his body as if looking for confirmation of what he was saying and keeping his voice low enough that the bartender couldn’t hear him.

“I’m… sick. Terminal and I don’t have very long left.” Harry said, staring into the amber liquid in his glass as the words left him. It was the first time he’d acknowledged it, actually said it out loud and doing it felt surprisingly natural. It was coming. He wasn’t afraid of it. Sirius, Remus and his parents were waiting for him. Just thinking about it put him closer to peace than he’d been in years. Smiling softly to himself at the thought Harry raised his glass to take another cautious sip of the liquid that had managed to warm him up when numerous doses of Pepper Up had failed… and promptly choked as the man sitting next to him asked his next question.

“… and have you kissed anyone yet?”

Inhaling scotch was infinitely more painful than simply drinking it without being prepared for it and Harry spent a good few minutes spluttering as the man laughed at his reaction.

“I would have asked if you were still a virgin but the answer to that question is painfully clear.” The man continued on as if Harry hadn’t just choked, smirking down at him as he slumped over the bar wheezing again.

Ok, he was SO not about to fall for that again, he had the guy’s measure. He was getting a real kick out of getting a reaction out of him wasn’t he? The guy wanted to play that game? Fine then. He’d play along. “Yeah.” He said as he mopped himself clean for a second time, determined not to get caught spluttering again. “They weren't that good though. But I'll chalk that up to the first using me for rebound on her dead boyfriend, and the other as my best mate's kid sister.”

“Oh? A little sister? How brave of you.” The man said, eyes glinting at the unspoken challenge in Harry’s eyes, seemingly determined to see him spluttering again.

“… she also had six brothers.”

The man snorted. “And no plans to spend your last night with that young lady in question?”

“Not really. I don't think I could do that to her.”

“So you'll die a virgin, how sad.”

“..... smooth. Remind the dying kid what he's going to be missing out. Great stuff. I can see you're all sunshine and gumdrops. Must be real popular with the ladies.”

“I could help you with that.” The man purred, ignoring the slights to his character and leaning right up into his personal space, knocking Harry’s new fedora off his head in the process.

Catching it before it could hit the ground Harry scooped it up and squashed it onto the man’s face, pushing the man back onto the seat he’d leaned out of trying to get him spluttering again. “Nah. You're alright mate. I’ll have to pass on that.” Harry said as he pushed the hat onto the man’s head. “However would you deal with my corpse in the morning?” he asked sarcastically as the man flipped the fedora off his head and examined it before tilting it back on at a rakish angle.

“I’m sure I could manage, I am the world’s greatest Hitman after all.” The man replied, buffing his nails on his shirt and smirking in good humour.

Harry’s froze in mid-sip and choked down it down, staring up at his drinking partner for the night with wide eyes. “You… aren’t joking.”

“Interesting.” The man murmured, leaning back into his seat. “The first person not in the Mafia to _ACTUALLY_ believe me.”

Mafia? That… Ok. Sure. Didn’t matter. “Couldn’t you have waited till _after_ I’d finished swallowing to drop that on me?” Harry asked, rubbing at his throat as he coughed painfully, it felt raw from forcing down his most recent mouthful.

“So you swallow. Even more interesting.” The man said, waggling his eyebrows.

“You’re going there? _Really?_ ” Harry asked even as he felt his face flush a bright red, just the reaction the man had been looking to garner judging by the satisfied Cheshire smirk crawling up his face. Harry had heard more than his fair share of dirty jokes before, you couldn’t escape living in Gryffindor tower without hearing a good few, but he’d never actually been the target of them before. No one had ever had the balls to crack dirty jokes about him, at least not to his face.

“I’m not used to being turned down, humour me.”

Harry snorted. “Well if it's any consolation, I just don't do one night stands. And since I've only GOT one night - you're getting nothing.” There was a moment of silence at that and their eyes met, a silence that stretched before breaking with a laugh that sounded out of the both of them.

“Oh my _god_.” Harry said as he leaned heavily against the bar, wheezing with laughter this time. “If any of my friends saw me right now _they’d_ die. I’m in a bar, drinking and getting hit on by a professional killer.”

“Not just a professional killer.” the man corrected, ever present smirk angling down at him again. “I’m the World’s Greatest Hitman.”

Harry palmed his face, not knowing if he wanted he wanted laugh or not. What a thing to be proud of. “There’s a cop sitting just across the room.” He pointed out, keeping a firm lid on the bubble of unreal hilarity that wanted to escape out of him.

His drinking partner set his drink down and slanted his head in the direction Harry had indicated, as if he hadn’t even noticed the uniformed officer relaxing at her own table, and turned to give him a look so heavy with condescension that Harry wanted to kick him. It was a look that said ‘Really?’, ‘As if.’ and, ‘Bitch please.’ all at once.

“Someone as high-class as myself will never have to worry over such small things.” The man said loftily, sniffing at the very idea of getting arrested.

Wasn’t exactly lacking in confidence was he? “And if I went over there and told her that you told me you were a Hitman?” Harry asked, biting his lip to stop himself from laughing. This conversation really shouldn’t be as funny as he was finding it.

“Well I was just trying to score myself a hot date wasn’t I?” the Hitman asked rhetorically, an innocent, butter-wouldn’t-melt expression briefly crossing his face. “I had no idea you’d actually _believe_ my little joke~!”

“Unbelievable. So what if I added that I was underage? You could get arrested for trying to ‘get lucky’ with a minor.”

The man smirked viciously, dark eyes bright with hilarity. “You wouldn’t be that stupid would you? Why that would be you admitting to underage drinking! To a police officer! You’d spend the last night you have on earth stuck in a jail cell, what a tragic end!”

Harry let out a burst of shocked laughter. How the hell had the bastard managed to turn the hypothetical situation around so fast? This guy was stupidly fast on his mental feet! “I think I might be starting to see how you earned your title…” Harry said when he finally gained control of himself.

The smirk on the man’s face shifted from viciously amused to highly satisfied and preening in seconds. The man sketched an elaborate bow at him from where he was sitting and reached up to his own head and doffed the fedora at him. “It’s always good to hear appreciation, especially from such a lovely audience.”

Harry snorted again. “You never stop do you?”

“It’s in my nature.” The man said, false tone of apology in his voice. “I’m very… _active_.”

“There's an innuendo in there I'm too polite to point out.” He shot back, leaning away as the Hitman leaned into his personal space again. He reached out a hand to push the man back away from him again when the world abruptly began started to spin. His drinking companion was saying something but Harry didn’t hear any of it.

Darkness eclipsed his vision for a brief moment, not long enough to make him fall from his seat to the ground but definitely nearly there. He felt dizzy, the sudden cold rush that crashed through him left black spots dancing in front of his eyes and his head feeling light. The world went dark for a heartbeat and his body just lost the strength to hold him up.

Harry had felt this before.

Sprinting up the stairs to the North Tower and the Divination classroom, finally getting there only for his knees give out on the last few steps, too tired and weak to carry him. Diving from a too-steep height and having the breath rush out of him when he levelled his broom. A lethargy that came with not being able to catch his breath followed by the tingling weakness that came from casting too many spells at once.

When the darkness receded he realized he was hanging sideways halfway out of his chair and a solid arm was the only thing keeping him from meeting with the floor. He realized almost immediately that his black-out must have only been momentary, otherwise his drinking companion wouldn’t still be trying to drag him back up onto the seat he’d almost fallen out of.

“I knew you weren't lying but I didn't think you were being so completely honest about your estimated end of the line.” The man remarked as he got up out of his own seat to steady him further.

“Did you think I was joking about leaving you with a corpse to deal with in the morning when you offered to 'help’ me earlier?” Harry asked faintly as the dark spots in his eyes stared to dance across his vision.

“… I’m taking you to a doctor.” Was all the Hitman responded with, slipping the arm he had caught him with around his waist and pulling him off the chair.

Harry struggled weakly against the man’s grip as he all but manhandled him out of the bar. “I told you, there's nothing they can do. They had me on bed rest before I checked myself out this morning. I want to actually DO something on my last night on earth. Not sit in a bed and listen to my bestfriends tell me everything will be okay, that I'll be fine and soon we'll be able to move on with our lives and all that sort of bollo…”

Harry’s legs weakened mid-word and buckled, they folded out from underneath him as his visioned darkened again. When he next came-to he was no longer being pulled out of the bar but was instead lying in the passenger’s seat of a car.

“Should I start trying to climb out the window screaming about abduction?” Harry asked groggily as he peeled his eyes open to glare weakly at his kidnapper.

“I doubt you could muster the strength. Sit down, shut up, and accept my help. I don't usually offer it beyond a bullet.” The Hitman snorted, dark eyes briefly glancing off the road to slant an irritated glare of his own down at him.

“Sounds lovely. Give me one of those, beats being dragged into a ruddy hospital again.” He managed to grit out, finding it hard to breathe all of a sudden.

The next few minutes passed by in a blur of unintelligible noise and movement, he faded in and out of consciousness between one weak breath and the next. One moment he was in the car, then he was being pulled out and set on a wheelchair. He was being wheeled into a hospital and then lifted up onto an bed. The Hitman was leaning over him and then a doctor took his place, a strangely young doctor that couldn’t be very much older than he was. One that was possibly just year older than he was.

The teenager’s brown hair was disheveled and the white doctor’s coat he had thrown on over a pair of light-blue scrubs had seen better days. A stethoscope was hooked around the doctor’s neck and he had a badge that read ‘Shamal’ pinned to them.

“...shouldn't be _possible_. He's actually hemorrhaging Sky Flames, losing them too quickly for his body to replace. But not active or we'd be able to see it from half a city block away. Where did you _find_ him, Reborn? By all rights he'd be on every radar in the underworld but he's a complete unknown. His organs are in the middle of failing due to massive flame-depletion, he has full-on heart arrhythmia - he's physically having a heart attack because he doesn't have enough energy to keep his heartbeat to a steady rhythm. Even his BRAIN is shutting down! Goddamn. I… I couldn't do anything even if I wanted to! He would need an _ocean_ of Sky Flames just to keep him out of ICU long enough for a ridiculously powerful Sun flame to heal the damage. And I'm talking _RIDICULOUSLY_ strong. Stronger than you.”

“How long does he have?”

“Not even an hour. The kid is burnt out, running on fumes. By all rights, he should have died long before you brought him in with the level of flame energy he has. I've seen _squirrels_ with stronger wills to live than him right now. I honestly don't know what to say, Reborn, I've never seen anything like it. It shouldn't even be possible to hemorrhage your Flame like that.”

“I shouldn’t… have lived this long in the first place.” Harry muttered under his breath, tilting his head towards the voices and opening bleary eyes that he hadn’t realized he’d shut, focusing his blurring vision on the two men standing at his bedside. “People aren’t supposed to survive what I did, I’m on borrowed time anyway, always have been. It’s not a big deal, you can stop freaking out… I'm just going to the Next Adventure is all.”

“There is no great Adventure. Just death. Are you really so weak willed that you're just going to _give up_?” The dark haired hitman, (Reborn?) snapped, turning away from the awfully young looking doctor and reaching a hand to grip one of his shoulders in a near-painful grip.

“… And you would know what happens when people die, wouldn't you?” he snorted as he lifted his own hand up to pull the man’s hand off his shoulder. “As for giving up, this isn't me giving up. This is me accepting that what will be, will be and I will meet whatever comes afterwards with my head held high. I'm not going to be dragged down kicking and screaming like some ungrateful coward. Death is just another part of life after all, and I will greet him with a smile.” Harry smirked bitterly. He’d meet death just like he had the last time. Head on, without choice but with no regrets, without the will or desire to die but accepting the inevitable. This was the Peverell Fate.

A stubborn glint appeared in Reborn’s dark eyes and Harry let go when a warmth started to spread down from between their joined hands. “… didn’t the doctor just finish saying that you wouldn’t be able to help me?” he asked gently as he pushed the hand away from him. “How crazy do you have to be to go so far for a complete stranger?”

Dark eyes widened. “You know what I was…”

“You're warm. Like I used to be. Didn't take much to figure out.” Harry smiled wryly as he shifted. “If you want to help… there _is_ still one thing you can do for me.” He said as he reached a weak hand into his lapel pocket and tried to get his shaking hand to cooperate long enough to pull the object in his pocket out.

“Here, let me…” Shamal said, easing Harry’s hand away from where he was trying to reach and slipping his hand into the pocket. Grasping the ring he had tucked away in there the young doctor yelped when he came into contact with it and hastily pulled his hand back, making the ring tumble out onto the bed-spread.

“Feels horrible doesn’t it?” Harry asked as he caught it, wrapping his fingers around it.

“What _is_ that thing?” the teenage doctor asked,(or was it nurse? Hard to tell when he was missing his glasses), pulling a face and wiping his hand off against his scrubs, then examining his hand briefly as his face contorted.

“My curse.” He answered. “Toss it into the next volcano you happen to pass?” Harry asked jokingly, pulling the silk handkerchief he had tucked into the breast pocket of his suit so he could drop the Gaunt Ring into it and tie the folds shut over the awful thing.

He’d already taken care of the Elder Wand, broken it into pieces, pulled its core out before burning it and left his invisibility cloak with the goblins for Teddy to inherit when he was old enough for Hogwarts. The only thing he had yet to take care of was the ring, he’d thought to maybe toss it down a storm drain somewhere or drop it in a dumpster. He’d nearly forgotten he still had it until he’d unwittingly reminded himself of it by thinking of his Peverell ancestors. By giving it away to a stranger, someone with no connection to him, no one would be able to find it. Not without retracing the steps he’d taken to get to where he was and then the searching witch or wizard would have to track down Reborn. Who had admitted to being the ‘World’s Greatest Hitman.’ Anyone who came after him looking for the ring would deserve what they got.

“Chop up the ring, grind the stone down to dust, drop it in molten lead or whatever. Just destroy it. I would have done it myself but… well, here I am. In a hospital. Again.” Harry said as he sighed gustily. Pushing himself up off the bed he tried to reach out and hand the little silk-wrapped bundle over to Reborn but stopped halfway as he felt the world around him start to swim again.

Reborn caught him as he folded forwards over himself, catching the hand that had tried to hand over the Gaunt ring and gently taking it from his hands. Harry let himself fall over onto the man’s shoulder and slumped as the last vestiges of energy slipped from him. “It’s… the last… thing I meant to do…” Harry whispered into the man’s ear, unable to summon the strength for anything louder. “The number… of people… who died over this thing… I meant… to be the last and let… the Peverell Fate… die with me. Don’t let anyone… else… get their hands… on it. Destroy it… as soon as you can.”

Warmth blossomed inside him, traveling down from where Reborn had placed his hands to run through his near-frozen system. The Hitman was channeling the energy that had been flaring through his hands earlier into him and Harry didn’t even have the strength left to stop him anymore.

“No! Reborn! What are you _doing_? Do you know the consequences of Harmonizing with a dying Sky? That's going to _shatter_ you! You're _ruining_ yourself Reborn! Stop before you go too far!” Shamal exclaimed, reaching forward to try and tug the Hitman away from him and getting kicked back roughly to the wall with a pained grunt for his troubles.

“It's a little too late for that.” Reborn snarled, hands twitched slightly on him.

Shamal sucked in a shocked breath.

Harry didn’t know what they were talking about but in the end it didn’t really matter did it? The energy Reborn was feeding into his system wasn’t going to last very long, it was just barely enough to give him the strength breathe out a laugh against the man’s ear. “So stubborn.” He said weakly, reaching up to hook his fingers into the man’s breast pocket, too weak to reach up any further. “Thank you… for trying but… my time… is finished. You need… to let me go. Sorry, I guess I’m going… to be leaving… you to deal with that… corpse after all…” Harry whispered softly into the man’s neck. “You… didn’t even manage to get… anything out of me…”

“… I got your hat. I’m keeping it.”

Harry chuckled weakly at that. “Looks better on you… than it ever did… on me.”

“… any last requests beyond destroying the ring?” Reborn’s voice ground out, sounding strangely rough for such a smooth voice. “That kiss offer is still on the table.”

Harry laughed. “Open… the window? I just… wanted to… see the sky… one last time.”

Reborn jerked, as if that wasn’t exactly something he was willing to let him go long enough for, and Shamal abruptly moved from where he’d been kicked to the wall and over to his bedside instead of the closed and dark window. The doctor reached into a coat pocket, threaded a ring over his finger and a wave of deep blue flames washed over the room. Harry felt them brush over his skin and felt his lips tug upwards at the sensation. The warmth was a very welcome relief against the creeping edges of cold that was beginning to sink back into his bones despite Reborn’s best efforts.

The indigo flames flooded across the floors and edged up the walls to eclipse the ceiling, they blurred the hospital away and replaced it with a stunning expanse of wide open sky, a gorgeous sunset. Shamal had somehow managed to create a misted sky inside the room, one that burned brightly with a sun colouring the clouds in various shimmering shades of vivid gold and orange. An artificial wind brushed the hair back away from his face and, if Harry allowed himself, he could almost imagine that he flying in the air above Hogwarts, viewing a peaceful sunset after a tiring day of classes. He could even halfway ignore the chill threading back through him as he imagined the warmth of the flames tickling his skin were from the hearth of fireplace in Gryffindor Tower.

For that one blissful moment, he was home. In the only home he’d ever known and somehow safer than he’d ever felt in his entire life. How was it that a professional killer, a hitman and his friend, made him feel this way? Not even the warmest of Mrs Weasley’s hugs had ever left him feeling so…

 _“… warm.”_ He whispered, leaning into the hold that was the only thing keeping upright. He felt his breath begin to slow and smiled as his vision began to blur into grey around the edges. He felt his hand slip out of the Hitman’s breast pocket, no longer having the energy to keep them hooked there and forced out his last words even as he felt the last vestiges of strength leave him.

“Thank… you.”

OoO

Reborn marked that day as the beginning of the end of the ‘golden age’ in his life. It certainly marked the day his luck took a turn for the worse, or perhaps that was merely a reflection on state of his mind, that he would mistake his shattered thought processes and blame his failures on ‘luck’.

For a long time he stopped caring which jobs he took or who they came from. Missions stopped being challenges and became pay-checks. He threw himself into his work with the kind of hard-boiled attitude Shamal called ‘self-destructive’ to his face. He didn’t care. It wasn’t like he had anything to worry about. He was the world’s greatest Hitman, any surprises weren’t exactly going to hit him any harder than he’d already been hit. Though if Shamal said he was being self-destructive one more time he was going to self-destruct his fucking foot up his herniated ass.

He was back in Italy now, after months spent in England. He was working. Finally after weeks of burying himself in research, combing record after record and strong arming Shamal into calling hospitals looking for information on the ‘John Doe’ that had been ‘admitted’ into the hospital and finding nothing.

Reborn had spent those months in England in the grips of a blind obsession.

Retracing the teenager’s last moments had been surprisingly difficult and combing through the streets for any clue as to where the mysterious Sky had come from only dug up the store the boy had apparently bought the clothes he’d been wearing when he died. The boy had even paid for the new clothes with cash. Reborn had chased down the dead end that had been the shop-keeper’s belief that the boy had lost his luggage at the airport and collected the articles of clothing the boy had left at the shop but had turned up empty handed as far as a name went.

All he had to show for that arm of the investigation was set of white pyjamas and a thick hand-made cloak made of heavy wool, clothing had ended up being yet another gigantic dead end as they had been hand-made instead of store-bought. He hadn’t even been able to locate the tailor who had made the cloak despite having visited more than a fair few specialty stores and having insinuated himself into England’s community of Renaissance fair goers to comb through their entire network of contacts.

CCTV footage was yet another dead end, Reborn managed to track the young Sky’s last moments, from their meeting in the bar to the purchase of the clothes he’d been wearing but tracing his steps further into London proved to be an exercise in frustration. The teenager had walked to the clothing store out of an area almost completely devoid of cameras.

“It’s like he appeared out of thin air!” Shamal had complained as he hung up the phone in the hotel room Reborn had been using as a base of operations. “I must have called every hospital in England by now and no one has got any matches for the kid! The kid was only seventeen and he looked like he’d been through the wringer, he had to have visited a hospital at SOME point in his life!”

The only other clue they’d had on them as to the teenager’s identity was the ring he had told them to destroy, the symbol engraved on the stone and the name Peverell. The internet didn’t reveal anything about the symbol on the ring on its own but paired with the name the boy had unwittingly dropped they came across what seemed to be an entire online community, one that was wholly dedicated an urban myth unique to England. It was based an old children’s story that had apparently been passed down from parent to child in England for the last few thousands of years and spoke of three objects that supposedly granted the person who collected all three immortality.

The three items were a ‘wand’, an ‘invisibility cloak’ and… a stone engraved with the symbol of ‘the master of death.’ A stone that was able the summon the dead, but such a pale imitation of them that they weren't even ghosts. Goddamn it, he’d finally met the one Sky strong enough to pull him into a Harmony and of course the boy was going to be tangled up in something that had painted a gigantic target over himself.

He'd been _TEMPTED_ to find out if the ring was genuine, if it worked as advertised but had ultimately not wanted to drag the poor boy’s soul out of whatever afterlife he'd be enjoying just to be forced to hang around him. Because after all the shit he’d clearly been through, he would be in the good place. Not the very hot one that awaited him.

How could someone have been so calm about their own death? Especially when their flame was all but dragging people into his orbit? God, Reborn had practically walked face-first into that and hadn’t had a hope in hell at being able to avoid it. He’d noticed the boy as soon as he’d walked in, even overheard snatches of the phone call the boy had made prior to sitting down despite the music obscuring most of the conversation, (The name Piers must have been a first name, damn it). He’d not only been lecherous but when he let his guard down just enough to feel for the kid… he’d Harmonized with him without even a second’s worth of warning. Forged a Guardian bond with a dying Sky. Just barely after the boy walked into the same bar as him and he’d bonded with a full Harmonization singing in the back of his head! A bond that strong usually took months, (sometimes years!), to form!

He had gotten to know what it was like, just for that moment, to be accepted wholesale and completely. Had experienced a Harmony. Spent an hour chatting and laughing with the most important person in his life, had finally found a Sky powerful enough to draw him in. One who hadn't cared about his title as the Greatest Hitman, hadn't cared about the lives he had stolen, the power he had hidden away, or the prestige that his presence would bring. One who didn't even know about Flames, or care.

A Sky that had laughed and shoved a hat in his face while blushing to the tips of his ears over a little harmless flirting, and had choked on scotch he didn't like the taste of just to scrape what little teenage dignity he had left.

Reborn had heard all the stories, had multiple recounts of what Harmonizing felt like, who hadn’t? But the realization he had Harmonized felt like every story he'd ever heard put together and more.

It had been a feeling so unlike anything else. It had been like... coming home. As if his whole world was suddenly grounded and opened, almost as if there was suddenly a center to his universe and everything that he was, could be, had been, was being welcomed by it, embraced and pulled close without judgement, fear or expectation.

The loss of that was… unspeakable.

Shamal hadn’t exactly escaped unscathed but he’d been lucky enough to avoid a full Harmonization, the doctor hadn’t had the time yet to acknowledge what had started to happen and the boy clearly hadn’t known about it but it had been there. It had been more of a whisper with him though, a brushing of hands rather than the full clinging grasp that had ripped right through his own barriers like they wasn’t even there.

Reborn wanted to be jealous of Shamal, of the man’s near-escape, but FUCK that had been _his_ Sky. He was angry at himself for being so useless, angry at Shamal for not being as affected by the boy’s death and then angry at himself all over again for even thinking Shamal had been the lucky one. Angry that Shamal had suggested that perhaps they should let things be and that surely the kid wouldn't have wanted him to drown in his death. Angry that Shamal had been right because the kid hadn't seemed the type and then at himself over the fact he’d dragged Shamal into the kid’s orbit.

It had near ruined the teenager.

Shamal had put a hold on his studies. The Doctorate in Infectious Diseases, his Nursing and Entomology degrees on hold to dive.. no, FALL into his own research. Trying to find a cure he’d likely never use. For a condition neither he nor any of his contacts had ever heard about, a condition he’d never likely come across again and one that he couldn’t even begin to fathom the cause of. Working only with the information he'd managed to glean from that brief time Reborn had brought him in to treat him because there was no way the Hitman was going to allow an autopsy on the dead Sky's corpse. Shamal had known better than to ask for permission. The doctor hadn’t been anywhere near close to considering suicide. He hadn’t been that badly burned by his unintentional Harmony. Not like Reborn had been.

Months later and the teenager was still nowhere near to finding a cure, just like he was nowhere closer to finding any trace of evidence that the kid had ever lived aside from the nameless grave in Italy where he was laid to rest near a beachfront, a location famous for its stunning sunsets. Buried where people would respect the symbol on his gravestone, a winged crown. A nod to the only thing he’d ever known him as. His Sky.

The grave quickly became a local legend - the Unnamed Sky. Rumours soared, and people gossiped on the atypical representation engraved on the tombstone. Traditionally, Skies were represented with a bold crown and flared wings. A crown to symbolize their position and wings that represented their flames, flared to protect what was theirs, in their rightful place, neither falling nor flying.

Reborn had chosen something different for his Sky. The meaning behind the symbol’s break from the traditional bold crown and flared wings to the small, understated crown with the curled in wings was simple. His Sky had ended up having to defend himself, shield himself, and ultimately had to go up to the good place in the actual sky. So, wings were folded inwards, poised ready for protection and prepared for flight at a moment’s notice. Crown small and understated for his Sky’s unrealized potential.

Shamal had understood the meaning immediately, everyone else? Weren’t nearly so quick on the uptake. Some thought that Reborn had been hiding a Sky and congratulated themselves over coming up with a reason as to why he’d never Harmonized with a Sky before. Other’s assumed correctly that theirs had been a recent meeting, but then went on to speculate over what qualities a Sky would have to have to be able to Pull Reborn into ‘her’ Harmony.

He looked forward to the idiot brave enough to ask him questions, ‘Answering’ would make for fantastic stress relief.

Rubbing an irritated hand between his eyes Reborn sighed and carefully, with growing ease of practice, pushed the mental image aside. He… needed to stop obsessing already. Nothing was going to change what had happened and dwelling was just going to drag him back down into the spiral of depression he had only just managed to drag himself back up out of. He wasn’t all the way there yet, probably wouldn’t ever be but at the very least he could function.

Should he take a break? Take himself on vacation somewhere sunny? All that time in dreary England and then diving back into the Underworld immediately upon his return to Italy had left him with very little time to unwind. He needed some time to relax.

Letting himself into his office Reborn closed the door behind him and walked over to is desk, dropping his keys in the ashtray he kept on-hand for clients. Taking the time to greet his newly hatched pet chameleon, a gift from Shamal that had clearly been meant to have been something of a distraction, Reborn carefully shifted the potted plant the reptile was clinging to. He made sure it was as far away from the edge of the desk as possible and let a rare smile cross his face when the creature leaned forward to press up against his hand.

Leon the Chameleon, named so for the express purpose of seeing Shamal slap a hand to his own face in exasperation, had turned out to be quite the priceless gift. A shape-shifter. One that had been handed to him as an egg and given to him to ‘fuss over’ as Shamal had put it. A shape-shifter was rare. Finding a shape-shifter’s egg was rarer. Even rarer was the chance to have such an egg respond to the owner and hatch. Rarer still was the opportunity for said shape-shifter to imprint on said owner.

Giving Leon the petting he was clearly looking for Reborn reached a hand into the shallow dish of pins he kept next to Leon’s plant and turned to press it into the picture he’d been given of his latest target, pinning the man’s image in between the eyes. Leaning back he stared wordlessly at his photo-covered wall and considered. He… really had been working himself down to a thread hadn’t he? Maybe… it was time to consider retiring--

Feeling the hair on the back of his neck rise Reborn had a gun in hand and levelled directly behind him within an instant. “Who’s there?” He demanded, scanning the apartment for the intruder that had his hair standing on end. He’d heard something. In his apartment. Somewhere that should have been completely safe, how had he not noticed someone had gotten in before him? Now that he was paying attention he noticed the throw rug in the hall had moved a millimeter to the left, the door to his filing room was open and, of course, someone was lounging in the armchair he kept in that room. Waiting in the shadows. For him. Making himself at home in his own chair.

How bold. The action itself spoke volumes as to the skill level and fearlessness this person had, to be confronting him in such a manner. To think he was so tired and stressed that he’d MISSED the tiny and minute details that gave away the fact that someone had gotten into his apartment before him… he would have noticed had he not been so overworked. It seemed he was LONG overdue for that vacation.

“Please excuse me, Mr World’s Greatest Assassin.” The intruder said calmly, tilting his head and observing him. The movement shifted his upper body into view as the man had been sitting just so that the light coming in from the room Reborn was standing in illuminated only his lower body. “So, you really are qualified.”

Quite the dramatic soul wasn’t he? How long had the man been sitting in his apartment thinking of ways to introduce himself? Going from what he’d seen of the man so far he wasn’t impressed. The only reason why this man had gotten the drop on him was simply because he had let it happen, worn himself down enough to the point that apparently his apartment was deemed safe enough to break into. Qualified?

Keeping the sneer off his face Reborn made sure his face stayed passive. Easily impressed as well, wasn’t he? To be so admiring of what he himself viewed as a mistake that could have cost him his life. This either had to be another Hitman or… a suicidal client. Well then, best get straight to the point. “Who are you? Who sent you?” He asked, keeping his questions short. He was tired and he’d already had enough of this man’s bullshit from first appearance.

His intruder had a taste for checker-patterned clothing. Tie, gloves, hat, mask and even part of his great coat was patterned with the same blocky black and white print. How tasteless. “I came on my own.” The man returned lightly, one of his hands releasing its grip on an overly gaudy cane to reach into a lapel pocket.

“Don’t move an inch.” Reborn warned, tensing up. One wrong move and the man was going earn his death wish.

“Just calm down a moment.” The man said, hands closing around something smaller than the gun Reborn thought he’d been reaching for. He didn’t relax, any number of things could be small enough to—a clear pacifier?! Eyes unintentionally tracked the object’s movement as the man tossed it in a high loop above his own head. Shifting momentarily off of his mental target Reborn was caught flat-footed by the sheer absurdity of the man pulling such an object. On him. A Hitman he had just acknowledged as the best in the world.

“I am… collecting the world’s strongest, I Prescelti Sette.” The man smirked, obviously feeling much more comfortable now that Reborn had shifted his piercing gaze off of him for that brief moment. A cocky smirk was now stretching across the man’s mouth, visible under the half mask he was wearing.

Client. Couldn’t be anything else. When had he fallen so far that lunatics thought that coming to him was a safe thing to do?

“I Prescelti Sette?” He asked, curious as to what this particular crazy was asking of him. Might as well hear the man out. Damn his curiosity.

“Yes.”

“Is this a commission for work?” he questioned, because was this really the best way the man could think of to go about asking a wired Hitman if he wanted to take on a job? Reborn kept his gun steadily pointed at the intruder, this wouldn’t exactly have been the first time another Hitman had posed as a client in order to ‘knock him off his throne’, so to speak. “As a team?”. The man HAD said he was collecting the world’s strongest, what other conclusion could you draw from that?

“You will be well-compensated. First I want you all to join up.” The man agreed, unfolding a piece of paper he must have pulled out of his lapel pocket at the same time as the pacifier. Shit, he really wasn’t at the top of his game today was he? “Go here.” The man instructed, smoothing the small slip of paper on the coffee table next to him as he rose to leave, wisely choosing not to try and hand it over. “Meet up with your colleagues.”

He kept his gun trained on the man’s head as he left and didn’t relax or reach for the piece of paper he’d left behind until he was well and truly sure he was gone. It was a simple map with directions to the apparent meeting place.

Reborn considered it for a long, drawn-out moment. If he’d be working with a team, a team to match him as the ‘World’s Greatest’ then this job could be an easy one. If the team members selected pulled their own weight… it could be just the thing to ease him away from hits and into retirement.

What the hell, one last client as the World’s Greatest Hitman. What could it hurt?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s a good place to stop, otherwise I’m going to go crazy. Poor Tsu-chan, so confused, don’t worry~ It won’t last… Reborn is coming in a few... years. *cough*

Sawada Tsunayoshi was a bright baby. He explored the world with a fascination and intelligence that had his parents cooing and thrilled, he was quieter than most children but that only added to his 'charm', it was even thought of as a blessing by his parents. If they noticed the uncertain quality in the way he reacted to the world around him and the wary caution he treated everyone and everything he was unfamiliar with, they just chalked it up to shyness and left it at that.

He loved bright, warm colours, the brighter and warmer the better. He quickly learned to crawl around and was even quicker in learning how to walk and was soon carefully exploring everything he could reach. Clever little hands learned how to push open doors and cupboards, pick up odds and ends to examine and put back. Objects were brought over to the closest parent and then put back once identified.

The words 'Mama' and 'Papa' were very quickly followed by colours, everyday house-hold objects and picture-book animals. He didn't babble like a regular baby did but instead picked up words at a rapid-fire pace that had both his parents beaming with pride. By the time he was wobbling around on unsteady legs he could string together a semi-intelligent sentence and have short, rather broken, conversations with his parents.

Actively avoiding attention Tsuna was content to sticking to either of parent, gluing himself to his father's side and then to his mother's when he wasn't home. However it wasn't very long before Tsuna figured out that no matter how much he may have liked to avoid attention he somehow drew it, with irritatingly effortless ease no matter how hard he tried to keep out of sight. For a brief time he thought it was the colour of his hair, Papa got the same considering looks for HIS blond hair after all.

By the time he was four years old Tsuna knew he was just different from everyone else, there was always something that kept him separate from everyone around him and it wasn't anything as simple as the colour of his hair or his supposedly foreign looks. It was in his dreams, the murky and dark dreams he'd been having for as long as he could remember. It was in the way he felt awkward, both with his family and with the world around him. Something was different about him and he didn't fit in with everyone and everything else the way he was supposed to.

He wished it was something clear-cut and dry, something he could pin down and name. His father called it 'intelligence' and his mother just called him cute but even then there was a sharp and distinct contrast between himself and his peers, in the way they thought and acted that had nothing to do with his personality or looks. The children he encountered and interacted with, neighbours and classmates, seemed almost alien to him.

Then there was the way the world around him felt familiar and unfamiliar all at once. By the time he hit five years old he knew he shouldn't know a good half of the things he knew, all it took was the look on the teacher's face when she had caught him reading through a book she had left on her desk to know that. He knew now that the book he'd picked up had been in English and that he somehow knew that language better than the one he was supposed to know even though he hadn't ever picked up a book in English in his life.

He knew how to read, write and speak in the language. Spoke it in a lilting accent that was completely different from Japanese and at times even thought in the language. It was easy, effortless and… unnatural. At a time when his classmates were still trying to figure out the names of the colours they were using to draw their pictures Tsuna not only knew the colours but could name the different shades and could even spell them correctly. In English. Matching the names in Japanese was a bit of a challenge but again it wasn't exactly difficult. By now it was more than obvious that his dreams were giving him real-world skills.

Tsuna knew better than to tell anyone any of this though, the look on that first teacher's face had been warning enough. He didn't know where he'd seen that look before but he knew what it meant.

Tsu-kun was NOT a freak.

He didn't know what had possessed him to do it but he was glad he had listened to that little thrill of warning inside him that had told him to lie to her when she had asked him what he was doing. He didn't know how he had known but the release of tension out of the woman's shoulders and the relieved smile on her face when he told her he was 'looking for the pictures' gave him everything he needed to know about how she would have taken the news that he could read the book she had left on the table.

He needed to be careful. He needed to keep his head down. If he stuck out or stepped out of the crowd in any way he'd draw attention. Attention drew trouble and that would make his parents angry. He didn't want his parents angry at him! What if they sent Tsu-kun away? He didn't want to go! He wanted to stay with mama and papa! As different as they were from him Tsuna loved his parents. Loved his mother's smiles and laugh. Loved the warmth of his father's hugs and his sound of rumbling voice. Papa even felt warm like Tsu-kun did! It wasn't freakish! They were a normal, happy family.

If all Tsu-kun had to do was pretend to be like his classmates, well that was easy! He was happy to act like them if he could keep Mama and Papa! As long as he didn't do anything stupid he could keep them! Normal, he just had to be normal! It didn't matter if the other kids started laughing at him when he 'lagged' behind everyone in sports and 'forgot' the answers to questions. He was normal, was going to stay normal. He was staying with mama and papa!

Even if it did mean having to dodge bullies at school, on the way there and on the way back. It wasn't as if it wasn't anything he wasn't used to, this was one of the things that second nature to him. He didn't even have to think about what he had to do, he just knew. Duck behind objects. Climb walls and trees. Hide if and when you could. Loudly approach an adult, a police officer was best, and only run when there was no other option because running made everything that much more fun for the kids chasing you. If you had to run, drop something for them to get distracted by and use the time to get away.

Tsuna's distraction today was the pink inflatable ball his mother had gotten from him for his last birthday and he honestly wouldn't care very much if he lost it. He hated the colour and the way it brought toads to mind. He'd kept the ball flattened in his backpack during the day and used a hand pump to refill it with air when class let out and bounced it on the way home. Just because he was planning on using it as a distraction didn't mean he wasn't going to get some fun out of it.

He sighed as he left the school grounds, wondering exactly what it was about himself that the bullies were so drawn by. It wasn't like he was the only kid there with foreign looks and he was far from the only blond. There was a girl in the next class whose hair was a shade or two darker than his but HER hair was still blond. It wasn't fair, he hadn't asked to inherit his father's hair colour! If only he'd gotten his mother's hair to go with the eyes he'd inherited from her… one day he was going to dye his hair and no one was going to stop him!

Tsuna cautiously made his way home, keeping a weather eye out for potential bullies as he kicked the irritatingly pink ball home. Why couldn't Mama have gotten him a proper coloured ball? He'd have liked a nice yellow one maybe, or a bright red one. He would still play with it, he wasn't ungrateful but… it was pink. Did Mama want him to be a girl?

Wrinkling his nose at the idea Tsuna kicked the ball harder than he should have around the last corner to his house, making it bounce off the footpath and onto the road. Oh well, it wasn't as if he was going to miss it if it got run over. He hoped it did get run over, maybe his mother would get him a new one if he asked nicely. Peering around the corner of the wall he looked around and sighed in disappointment, it hadn't gotten run over. It had rolled to a stop just in front of a parked car. Maybe he should wait till it DID get run over?

"Tsu-ku? What are you doing? Hurry up and come home, we have to go somewhere now!" his mother called from the gate of their house, watching him in bemusement with a hand propped up on her hip. "We're going to be picking up Papa's boss from the airport!"

"Airport?" Tsuna questioned, obediently trotting forwards and 'conveniently' forgetting the ball. He knew what that meant, someone was visiting from overseas.

"That's right Tsuna! We're going to meet Papa's boss for the first time! Isn't that exciting? A real Italian gentleman~!" his father exclaimed as he scooped him up from the ground, easily lifting him up and into his arms. "Want to meet him?"

Tsuna nodded hesitantly at that, letting his father take his backpack away from him and pass it onto Mama, biting his lip to stop himself from pouting when he realized the man was headed to the car. He was going to be put in the baby seat. Again.

The pout he was fighting won its bid for freedom when his father, after buckling him into the seat, left for a brief moment and returned with the pink ball Tsuna had left out on the street. The man dropped the evil thing onto his lap, ruffled his hair and went to seat himself in the driver's seat. He'd been hoping it would be flattened by the time he returned. How did Papa keep finding the stupid thing anyway? Tsuna was forever leaving it different places and he always kept returning it!

Did Papa think Tsu-kun liked the ball?

Tsuna let it drop out of his lap as soon as he knew Papa was no longer paying attention and stared longingly at the window, wishing he could reach the button that would make it roll down so he could toss the stupid thing outside. Too bad he couldn't reach it, even with his feet, it was just too far away. Maybe once they reached the airport he'd be able to find somewhere to drop it where his Papa couldn't give it back.

Papa's boss turned out to be an elderly man with a shock of messy hair turned white with age and brown eyes. He was dressed as if on holiday, wearing a straw hat that sat snugly on his head, a blue shirt printed with white flower patterns and a pair of white pants and sandals. Outwardly he looked harmless but Tsu-kun felt something when the man got down on a knee to speak with him and it wasn't anywhere near normal.

The man was warm, Like Papa and Tsu-kun, and looking into his eyes had made him feel like he'd met someone like this before. Those eyes may have been brown but Tsuna saw twinkling blue and a white beard, colourful robes instead of the holiday gear the man was wearing and the hand reaching out to him was offering lemon drops instead of fluffing up his hair.

"Nice to meet you, Tsunayoshi-kun."

Offering the man a shaky smile Tsuna flattened himself to his mother's leg, nowhere near willing to get any closer to the man than he absolutely had to be. The man, 'call me grandpa' had thankfully been sat in the front seat of the car on the way home, his mother had given up the front seat to sit next to him. It gave Tsuna plenty of time to study the back of the old man's head without being seen and wonder about the heat that wafted off him in waves.

He was like Papa and Tsu-kun. Warm. He'd never met anyone who felt the same way they did, not even Mama felt like that. Sticking close to her when they got home gave him the excuse to keep an eye on the strange man without making it obvious that he was doing so, fetching things his Mama needed as she started cooking up a storm. Papa wasn't letting him hover though and brought out the ball Tsuna had squashed under a car seat when everyone had gotten out.

"Here you go Tsuna~! Stop bothering Mama and go play, food will be ready soon!"

Obediently accepting the ball Tsuna sulkily stepped out into the garden and made a show of kicking the ball around, keeping one eye on the living room where Papa was talking with the man who had called himself his grandfather. One wrong kick and the ball, being of the extra-resilient and extremely bouncy type, hit the tree and bounced off the house before it went flying over the fence.

Whoops. Oh well it wasn't as if he really liked the ball in the first place-

Tsuna stepped back, startled for a moment when the ball sailed back over the fence before he could finish the thought and absently caught it before it could bounce past him. Someone had thrown it back? Tossing the ball back over the wall Tsuna quickly ran over to the gate to see if anyone threw it back and watched silently as a man in a dark suit grinned, bent down to pick it up and toss it back over the fence again.

"Ganache stop playing around, we're supposed to be guarding." Another man admonished him, lightly smacking the back of the man's head, messing up his hair. The man had black hair on the back half of his head and blonde hair in the front and an easy-going grin stretched across his face at the scolding.

"I can't help it! He's too cute!"

Guarding? Bodyguards? For who? … for Papa's boss?

"Well look where your stupid playing got the kid, his ball is stuck in the tree!"

What? Really? Tsuna looked up and sure enough, the bright pink ball was now caught in the fork of the branches above his head, looking garish against the lovely green leaves and blue sky.

"Well it's not like I can't just go in there and get it down…"

"That defeats the purpose of being discreet, besides you might scare him! Iemitsu would skin you alive for it."

Tsuna wrinkled his nose, he didn't want anyone getting into trouble because of him! It was his fault the ball was in the tree in the first place, he'd be the one to get the ball down! It wasn't that high up and he'd been climbing up and down that tree for ages now, it wasn't like the ball couldn't be reached! The men continued to talk, arguing the merits of retrieving the ball for him versus leaving it there to fall down on its own and then veering off on a tangent he couldn't really follow. Tsuna concentrated on the tree.

"…the way a baby Sky should be, all fluffy and sweet, not a prickly ball of pent up rage!"

"… not so much a baby as a tween though, there is a difference and that difference is hormones."

"… really imagine that little ball of fluff turning into a rage-monster?"

"… always the quiet ones."

Ignoring the conversation Tsuna started to climb, nimbly reaching the branch the ball was trapped in and easily balancing along the length in order to reach it. He'd almost reached the stupid thing when a shocked yelp sounded from the other side of the fence, coming from the man who had tossed his ball back earlier. The man's face, now visible from where he was perched on the branch, went ashen and rapidly paled to white.

"What are you doing! Get down from there!"

Tsuna startled, which he really shouldn't have given that he'd seen the man out of the corner of his eye and had known the man was there, but the warning had come so sharply! As a result of his little scare his hand slipped from where he'd been planning to set it down and he overbalanced.

The next few seconds were a blur, he was in the tree and then suddenly he wasn't. He was falling backwards head-first and then suddenly he was… floating? Orange fire streamed out of his outstretched hands, making it easier than anything to flip himself around mid-air and reorient himself so his feet were facing downwards. He landed softly and unharmed on the grass, hands still burning with orange and surrounded with a delicious heat that thrummed through his veins.

Instinctively stepping out of the way of the branch that came down after him Tsuna ducked out of its way without looking and ignored the ball that bounced after it. A glance up and he saw that the branch he'd been on, also the branch that had caught his ball, had broken off the tree. He turned his attention back to the heat in his hands, the play of fire in practically every shade of orange in existence, the warm lick of heat running through his system and marvelled at it. At the warm, intoxicating heat that flashed with all the fire of an orange opal.

He didn't get to admire it for long, feeling the heat fizzle slowly out of him he yawned widely and sat himself down right where he was standing. Slowly leaning forward over the ball he'd rescued Tsuna wrapped himself around it so he could pillow his suddenly heavy head on it. He didn't know what had just happened or how he'd done it but it had tired him out like nothing else!

"I…Iemitsu… how long has he been able to do that?" a voice asked shakily from the living room.

"… this is the first time I've seen…"

Had he not been quite so suddenly sleepy he would have jumped and started panicking, cringing into his Papa's hold when he picked him up Tsuna buried his face in the man's neck and tried to keep his tears back. He'd done it. Done something unnatural. Was Papa going to send him away now?

"It's too early for him to have this kind of access to his flames." His father's guest murmured.

Tsuna blinked and scrubbed at his face a bit to get rid of the moisture at the edges of his eyes before anyone noticed it. What did that mean? Peeking at the man, his supposed grandfather, he stared as the near-stranger reached a finger forward and jerked back a little in surprise when flames flickered to life at the tip.

Before he could really register what was going on the flames pressed into his forehead and the world abruptly went dark.

OoO

Tsuna immediately felt the difference to the world when he woke up.

Dizzily sitting up in bed he weaved as he tried to get the world to stop spinning. His head felt heavy, his limbs tingled numbly and worst of all the heat in his system felt like it had been… leached out of him. Almost completely.

Shivering he dragged up the blankets that had been loosely pulled up to his chin and wrapped it around his frighteningly cold body. He was cold, close to shivering and he really shouldn't be. It was summer, almost the height of it and it was late in the afternoon so he really shouldn't be as cold as he was feeling right now. What had happened? He'd been fine earlier and then… suddenly he was colder than he'd been in his entire life. Even at this time of night the air should be muggy with heat, instead… he felt like he might as well be standing in a freezer.

Forcing himself out of bed Tsuna dragged the blanket over to the closet, grabbed a thick sweater out and pulled it on. He rubbed some warmth into his arms and ventured out of the safety of his blankets, pausing only to reach into his closet to grab another sweater. Might as well double up if he was feeling this cold.

Padding uneasily out of his bedroom he felt a trickle of uncertainty, the house was quiet. Very quiet. With both parents and a guest in residence it really shouldn't be this silent.

Tsuna checked the other rooms on the first floor before staggering down the stairs, somehow managing to negotiate them without falling over even with the way the world swum in dizzying circles around him.

He wasn't sick. He knew he wasn't and yet… he was having trouble putting one foot in front of the other. If he hadn't been clutching onto the handrail he'd have fallen ass over teakettle and probably broken his neck! As it was he tripped on the last step down anyway and managed to plant his face into the wall. Pushing himself off the wall he took a moment to check if his nose was still intact and not as broken as it felt and gave it a careful rub as he wobbled weakly into the dining room.

It was empty, as was the kitchen and the rest of the house.

"Papa?" Tsuna called out into the empty house as he tried the dining room again and even stepped out into the front yard. "Mama?" The house was deserted, even the car that his dad had rented was missing. Stepping back into the house he headed back through the rooms again, thinking to check them once more but stopped at the sight of the kitchen table.

There was a small meal laid across the table, some rice balls and a bowl of miso soup, along with a simple letter that told him his mother had left to go drop his father off at the airport. He'd been left house all by himself.

He'd never felt so alone.

OoO

In the time that followed his 'grandfather's' visit Tsuna felt like the world had suddenly been tilted on its side and someone forgot to mention it to him. He had trouble walking, he couldn't put one foot in front of the other without tripping over one or both of his feet and his head felt muzzy and full of wool. If he'd had a sore throat to go with the other symptoms he'd have thought he was sick and hunkered down to wait for the illness to pass but several days after the visit went by and the cold, vertigo and dizziness stayed with him.

It didn't take him very long to figure out what was wrong with him. Tsuna had been dreaming of being someone else practically his whole life and these dreams were very much the key to the mystery as to why he suddenly felt like his world had suddenly been turned on its head.

Because those orange flames… the way he'd slowed his own fall down, the fire his father's guest had created at the tip of his finger. Wasn't that… magic?

If the dreams he'd been having his entire life had even the slightest possibility of being something more than just dreams… then he knew what was causing this 'illness'. Hopefully the cold would taper off. The bouts of dizziness would also stop as soon as he managed to get rid of the thing keeping a firm grip on him (his Magic? Flames?). If what he knew from his dreams was real then… his 'grandfather' had sealed away his magic and that was what was making the world feel so topsy-turvy.

The man had done something to him that had leeched the heat right out from inside him and locked it down so hard and so tight that Tsuna almost couldn't feel it anymore. The warmth he had once associated with himself, his father and a few random others had all but evaporated. He was always cold now, it didn't matter what time of the day or year it was or how close or far he was from a source of heat. It was wrong and he didn't like it at all.

He didn't know why the man had done it, but he had an inkling of an idea. Accidental magic was dangerous and, if he was right, the way it had manifested was doubly so! Especially for a five year old. The man had been protecting him from himself.

He didn't like it but… he could live with it.

That small, niggling and hopeful idea that he possibly knew exactly what was going on here was the only thing that kept him from giving up on finding a way to make the world right again. That all he had to do was wait just that little bit longer and he'd no longer have to worry about the cold and the dizziness. Just wait till he was eleven years old because he remembered how this all started.

Magic was real. It was real and magic school was six years away. If it was so dangerous for him to use his magic at this age… Then he could wait.

Six years was nothing when he had a lifetime of magic to look forward to.

OoO

After about a week of staying at home waiting for his 'cold' to pass and a trip to the doctor had Tsuna pronounced healthy enough to return to school. The idiot act he'd been keeping up… stopped being very much of an act and cemented itself as his new reality within what felt like an hour.

His attention wandered during class. He couldn't run three meters without tripping over his feet. He dropped anything and everything he happened to be holding. He made a mess of his lunch trying to eat it and hadn't even managed to keep most what he'd gotten in down, the vertigo sending him weaving drunkenly for the bathroom almost directly after he'd eaten.

He was sure he'd eventually get used to it but how was he going to survive the next few years until he was eleven without accidentally killing himself? He'd already gone through his meagre pocket money tending to various bumps, bruises and scratches he'd collected throughout the week and was hesitant to ask for more. At this rate he'd run out of Band-Aids and disinfectant within the next few days.

He'd tripped down stairs, he'd tripped UP stairs and bounced down them on his ass. He'd skidded across dirt and tumbled over grass without intending to and tripped over thin air for good measure. It was easy to hit the bottom rung of the class, almost embarrassingly easy. The teachers certainly didn't notice the difference in him, either that or they didn't care, and his 'health problems' kept him from having to participate in anything even remote classified as 'sports'.

It was possibly the only good thing about going back to school so early as he now had all the stamina and athleticism of an arthritic, salt-sprinkled slug. He hoped this was the last side-effect he was going to discover of the seal his 'grandpa' had put on him, he didn't need any more 'salt' rubbed into the 'wound'.

As it was he'd already had enough to deal with, the teachers may not have noticed much of a change in him… but the school bullies had. Which in turn had Tsuna adopting methods he'd previously only used in his dreams just to keep away from them. He had 'hideouts' all over Namimori and wasn't exactly afraid of losing non-existent dignity by acting like the baby he looked like. Calling attention to any confrontations on the days when he was feeling particularly drained and couldn't even muster the energy to fight back was about the only way he could get away on those days.

He finally got around to dying his hair using temporary spray to test the results. His mother didn't even notice, not noticing her son's blond hair turning brown overnight came part-and-parcel with the way she floated through life. His dad had once called it 'romantic', Tsuna himself had another word for it. Air-headed. It was a term far more polite than the first description that popped into his head. He'd honestly started to wonder if she'd been dropped on her head as a baby, too bad he couldn't find a polite way to ask her about it.

Dying his hair brown didn't seem to stop him from being the first target of Namimori Elementary bullies, but it DID somehow make him harder to pick out of a crowd. Idiotically enough the switch between colours confused his pursuers. All he had to do to lose them was duck into a bathroom, wash out the colour, switch his clothes around a little and walk away. The downside of that was having to walk home with wet hair, especially when he was already so cold, but the payoff was worth it.

He was walking on the way home from school again, hair already halfway to dry, when he discovered a sure-fire way to lift the lid off his 'flames' temporarily. His dream self's 'saving people thing' seemed to have made its way into Tsuna's personality by hitching a ride on the back of his lack of fear towards bullies. He may have been fine with them pushing him around… Ok, maybe not FINE with it but there was no way he was going to watch someone else get hurt when he could do something about it.

If there was one thing in the world he hated more than anything else it was bullies and here were seven of them. Seven bullies against two little kids. One pinned by the 'leader' of the group, and a little girl crying out for her brother, held back by another boy. There was a third grader, (recognizable as one of the loudest kids in school), pinned to the floor in a sloppy submission hold, looking like he was able to break out of the hold but hesitant and unwilling with his younger sister being threatened.

Something happened in that moment, rushing headlong to 'save' a couple of kids he didn't even know. Something that would later give him the key to unlocking the heat sealed away inside him. The grasp he reached out that had, in the last few days, slipped away before he could pry the lid off his flames held, tightened and yanked. He was suddenly flooded with warmth, delicious enveloping warmth that rippled through him from head to toe.

His 'saving people thing' coupled with his lack of fear and the jeering group of older elementary school kids surrounding two little kids had him rushing right into the thick of things. He didn't think, didn't even pause to try and process the scene in front of him, all he needed to see was that little girl crying and the third grader pinned to the ground and he was moving before he could stop himself. Tossing his backpack into an alleyway to retrieve later Tsuna dove straight into the thick of things.

Because Sasagawa Ryohei, (he was pretty sure that was his name) … was bleeding. This wasn't anything as stupid as school-yard bullying. This was serious, he even looked like he was having trouble seeing through the blood pouring down his face!

The bully holding the little girl was his first target, as much as he wanted to run straight into the thick of things to get to the injured boy Tsuna was too small to really reach him so he kicked at the next best target. Driving a vicious foot into the fork of the leader's legs from behind as hard as he could he shoved the boy away, catching the girl as she fell and pushing her behind him.

"Go get help!" He ordered shortly. "Run! There's a police box in that direction!"

The little girl stared at him incomprehensively and some of the boys milling around started to laugh, the smarter ones having backed away already. "What? A foreigner? Go home or we'll teach you a lesson too and it won't be Japanese!"

Japanese? What was this kid talking about- oh. Had he? He had. Spoken in full English. Damn. "Sorry." Tsuna apologized roughly to the little girl, this time in the right language, as he gave her another push. "Go get help, there's a police box in that direction. I'll buy you some time."

"But there's so many of them, how are you…"

"I'm not going to try and fight them!" He hissed under his breath, keeping his voice low so the group of boys nearby didn't hear them. "Run to the police box as fast as you can, I'm going to try and grab your… brother?" he asked, glaring at the other kids. "I'm going to grab your brother and run. You run too, go head for the police box, we'll meet you at the park ok?" he finished, giving her another little push to get her going. "Go, now!"

"Go Kyoko! Run!" The boy with the bleeding head wound said as he wrestled himself free of the hold pinning him to the ground, now more than willing to help himself up now that his sister was 'safe'. "We will EXTREMELY handle this!"

The girl, Kyoko, listened. With only a slight hesitant stutter to her step she whirled around and ran in the direction Tsuna had pointed out. One of the bullies tried to stop her and had his feet swept up from underneath him for his troubles, Tsuna landing him on his back and giving the older boy a sharp kick to the gut, winding him and effectively knocking him out of the fight.

Everything felt like it was almost happening in slow-motion and he was the only one moving at regular speed. He knew when the next punch or kick was coming. He knew when to duck and when to strike back, more importantly he knew where to hit to make sure the boys stayed down. He didn't need to be taught how to defend himself. He just knew.

He didn't escape the confrontation unscathed, he was years younger than the group of seven older students and even with his instincts running on full-throttle he couldn't dodge all the hits that landed, though he barely even felt it. Adrenaline was running high and his blood was pounding a rhythmic staccato beat in his ears, he almost wanted to stick around to try wipe the floor with these boys but he'd just sent someone off to go get the police.

All he really needed to do was give the girl, Kyoko, enough time to get out of reach. Given his luck he'd be lumped in with the bullies when the police finally meandered on over to see what was going on. Also he needed to keep in mind the fact Ryohei was still bleeding, for all that he looked to be running about as high with fighting spirit and adrenaline as he was, Ryohei was bleeding quite fiercely. He probably needed stitches, head wounds weren't anything to sniff at or try to shrug off.

"How are you doing?" he asked the bleeding boy as he aimed a jab at a kid that was aiming to tackle the third grader to the floor, grunting with the effort it took to knock him off course.

Sasagawa Ryohei's answering grin was blinding.

"I am EXTREMELY fine!" The boy exclaimed, slamming a right hook into the gut of the boy who had tried for a tackle even as he had to wipe a distracted hand across his eyes.

"Sure you are." Tsuna scoffed, pulling out a handkerchief and pressing it onto the other boy's face now that it was safe to do so, the bullies were mostly either winded or down. Taking one of the boy's hands he made sure Ryohei was pressing down on the cloth and gave the remaining bullies passing glare. "Here. Hold this. We need to get going."

"… but we still need to…" Ryohei tried to protest as Tsuna tugged at his other wrist in a tight grip, forcing the older boy to run after him or fall over.

"Get to the park like I told your sister?" Tsuna snapped, fighting the urge to look back and snarl in the boy's face. He knew. It wasn't like he didn't want to stay and teach the boys a lesson they'd never forget, but the police weren't going to be long in coming. Also it he'd seen one of the other boys run off. Who knew if he was running to escape or for reinforcements?

He wanted to roar with the frustration at having to run away. From bullies. He was sick of it, hadn't he had enough of that by now? Well, at the very least the boys who had previously thought it would be fun to pick on two kids were smart enough not to chase after them when they left, either that or they were too busy licking their own wounds. Rounding the corner to the park he all but dragged Ryohei into the public bathroom and waited for a bit to see if anyone had thought to follow them before he turned his attention to the kid he had 'rescued'.

"Stop poking it, you're going to make it bleed worse." Tsuna muttered as he slapped the boy's hands away from exploring the wound. He firmly folded the handkerchief he'd given the boy earlier over the exposed, (and still bleeding wound), and made sure the boy was pressing down on it again. "I know it hurts but you have to keep pressing it down… if you don't want to die of blood loss."

He had to press his hand back against the handkerchief when the boy went to shake his hand and Tsuna hastily used his left instead in order to keep the cloth over the wound. "I'm Sasagawa sibling one, Sasagawa Ryohei!" the kid introduced himself, "It's EXTREMELY great to meet you!"

"Nice to meet you too." Tsuna muttered shortly, giving the excitable kid the handshake he wanted before firmly redirecting the hand he'd taken into pressing against the cloth so he could grab some paper towels from the dispenser on the wall.

"Ooh, they EXTREMELY got me." The boy whispered in quiet awe, which made him turn right back around as fast as he could. Ryohei had peeled the handkerchief back and was examining the cut through his eyebrow in the mirror, leaning in close to get a good look.

"Didn't I JUST tell you not to do that?" Tsuna snapped, one hand reaching forward again to press the cloth down again. "Hold that DOWN while I wet these so we can clean you up a bit and see how bad it is."

The older boy stiffened to attention and clamped down on the handkerchief Tsuna made sure he was pressing to his own eyebrow. He went to keep an eye on him using the mirror as he turned to wet the paper towels but got distracted by the flicker of light reflected in the glass. From his own reflection. Orange light. Small flickers of fire no bigger than a candle-flame were tickling across his forehead and his eyes had changed from brown… to a burning amber that matched the flames perfectly.

"Onii-chan! Where are you?" a familiar voice called out, snapping his attention away from his reflection and suddenly Tsuna was left staring at Ryohei's retreating back as the boy charged out of the bathroom.

"KYOKO! I'm EXTREMELY over here!" the older boy bellowed, charging out of the bathroom without so much as a glance backwards.

"… you're welcome." Tsuna muttered sarcastically after him as he turned off the tap and wadded the unused paper towels into the bin, a huff of amusement escaping him at the energy the kid had put into the sprint. Not even a hit to the head strong enough to make him bleed was enough to get him kid to slow down, took hard-headed to a whole new level. Well, as long as he was fine, his sister would probably drag the hyperactive nutcase to the hospital, they could take care of him there.

Now that Ryohei was no longer there Tsuna turned his attention back to the mirror and stared at his reflection, zeroing in on the flickering candle-like flames at his forehead and met his own eyes. The flames themselves felt hot to the touch, as he discovered when he tested them against with curious fingertips, but didn't burn his skin. He'd… never heard of anything like this before, but in his dreams… he had seen something similar.

Tsuna had spent so many years dreaming of being someone else. Witnessing the world through the eyes of a wizard and feeling the same sensation and emotion. Once upon a time his dream-self had seen a phoenix burn with similar flames, only red and yellow to his orange. He'd also defended himself with the same against a professor intent on killing him.

Relief flooded through him. For the last few weeks he'd started to wonder if perhaps he'd imagined the whole thing, falling from the tree, saving himself and the immediate aftermath, he'd even halfway convinced himself that he'd made it all up. He wasn't exactly the poster-child for normal so one more weird dream on top of the ones he'd already been having was just another drop in the proverbial bucket.

But this. He was seeing this with his own two eyes, he could feel the heat running through his previously chilled system and it made his skin shiver in delight. Had he undone the seal that had been placed over his fla-

Amber sparked behind his eyes.

Staggering, Tsuna caught the lip of the sink as his knees buckled and barely managed to lower himself to the ground as he lost the strength he needed to keep standing. The seal he had thought he'd managed to lift off of himself slammed back into place with a vengeance. He felt himself drop forward and hit the floor with a hard thump and barely even felt it, his vision already darkening to grey around the edges as a numbness started to trickle through his limbs.

The last thing he saw before darkness closed in on him was Ryohei returning to the bathroom with a police officer, seemingly leading him to his rescuer. The adult made a shocked sound and was quick to kneel down next to his prone form. He didn't hear a word of what the man was saying, he was just glad the man was blocking the searing light coming in from the doorway.

The world faded out of focus before the man could even reach him.

OoO

When Tsuna's world came back into focus he was greeted to a view of a hospital room, all white walls and ceiling with green paper curtains separating the bed he'd apparently been sleeping in from the rest of the room. Wincing slightly at the sheer brightness of the sunlight coming in from the windows he bit back a groan and shielded his eyes with a shaking hand. Fantastic. He'd landed himself in hospital.

He didn't bother sitting himself up in bed, his head was weaving far too dizzily for that kind of movement, it was as if the room was tilting and whirling. He closed his eyes against it and rode it out instead, he was weeks into being familiar with the nauseating sensation and it wasn't exactly like he didn't know what it was, he'd just gotten all the confirmation he needed as to where it was coming from. He'd just used his magic, the flames that his grandfather had sealed away, likely as not the seal was overcompensating for what little he'd managed to grasp at by clamping down on him twice as hard.

He couldn't explain everything away as his imagination or a hallucination at this point, now that he knew what he was looking for… he could feel the tight grasping hold the seal had on him and it made his nerves itch. And now that he knew it was all real instead of something he'd dreamed up… he wanted to bite away at it and claw it into shreds.

A distraction came in the form of a voice speaking a little ways away from him, making him tilt his head to the side to see Ryohei speaking to someone who was just out of sight in his own bed behind the paper curtains, probably speaking to his little sister given the tone of voice. "… promise that I'll stop fighting but Kyoko, I'm still a man! There may come a time when I have to fight!"

Tsuna rolled his eyes at that. That kind of attitude towards bullies was like throwing fuel on a fire and all that was going to do was make him an even bigger target... then again Ryohei didn't exactly seem like the type to back down. Wonderful.

"Onii-chan!" Kyoko protested, clearly hearing the stubborn refusal to back down as well.

"… but if it's going to make you cry, I… won't lose again! I'll win!" Ryohei replied in a tone of voice that made this sound like he was making some great concession, instead of giving himself a loophole to continue fighting. Tsuna sighed and wished he'd stayed unconscious long enough not to hear that last part, he had a feeling that he was going to have to keep an eye on Ryohei so he didn't accidentally end up killing himself trying to keep that promise. The older boy almost sounded like he believed his own words too.

Shifting in bed he was able to get a good glimpse of Ryohei without letting the whole room know he was awake around and held back another sigh. Ryohei's whole forehead was bandaged and a patch was covering his left eye. Exactly how bad had the damage been that the doctors thought they'd have to wrap him up that much? He hastily closed his eyes when two pairs of feet came thundering into the ward, not wanting to draw attention to the fact that he was awake and subtly burrowed further under the blankets someone had placed over him.

"Ryohei! Kyoko!"

Letting one eye slit open a little Tsuna peered through his eyelashes at the couple that had burst into the ward and watched as they fussed over their two children and felt something twist in his gut at the sight. Biting his lip he gave up on the pretence that he was sleeping and sat himself up in bed, making to push the bedcovers off of him but then hastily covering himself up again at the biting chill. The warmth he'd managed to drag up out of himself had long-since drained away and had now left him with the agonizing bone-deep and aching need for it back again. He felt some relief from the blanket draped over him but it was hardly enough, someone had changed him out of the warm clothing he'd been wearing into a set of hospital garments. The thin cloth was no protection from the air-conditioned environment of the ward they were in.

If Ryohei's parents were here already… where was his mother? Or did… the hospital not know who he was?

Checking the plastic hospital id looped around his wrist Tsuna sighed. Of course. He hadn't exactly been carrying identification on him when he'd went to go help Ryohei and he'd ditched his backpack in an alleyway. How were the police supposed to figure out who he was without him saying anything? He was listed as Yamada Taro, which was Japan's version of 'John Doe'.

It was a small stroke of luck. If he could slip away without being noticed maybe he'd be able to get away before anyone cornered him for questions. He didn't want his mother finding out he'd been fighting, let alone having ended up in hospital for it. If he could just find his clothes…

Aha! They were in the bedside cabinet.

Slipping into his clothes as fast as he could, to spare himself from the near-freezing environment and to make sure no one caught him in the act, Tsuna stuffed a pillow under the blanket. He then balled up the pyjamas he'd been wearing so they'd make a lump where his head should be on the bed and threw the blanket over the top. At casual glance anyone would hopefully think he was still sleeping and let him 'rest'.

He weaved for a bit when he went to put on his shoes and had to sit himself down on the visitors chair to tie the laces. He was glad that Ryohei made such a lively distraction, he didn't think he'd have been able to make a clean get-away otherwise without someone catching him to grill him over what he'd done.

Peering around the curtain he made sure none of the nurses were paying much attention and casually walked out the door, hoping that no one would think it too odd to see him leaving when he hadn't been seen walking in.

No one blinked twice.

OoO

Tsuna arrived home breathing as hard as if he'd run a marathon and seeing almost double. The sheer amount of effort it had taken to walk home made him want to collapse again and sleep for a week this time instead of the handful of hours it had been since school had officially ended for the day.

Toeing his sneakers off in the doorway Tsuna stumbled up the step leading into the hallway and had to steady himself by planting a hand on the hallway table, which turned out to be a good thing as it brought the phone to his attention. The phone with the 'message waiting' light brightly shining for attention.

Turning down the volume of the device so it was about as low as it could get without being completely silent Tsuna pressed play and listened to the message. The police had called to say that someone had handed his backpack in as lost property at the local police station, would the parents please come pick it up?

He quietly deleted the message.

Picking the phone up from its cradle he padded further into the house and pushed the kitchen door open a little so he could see into where his mother was humming happily to herself over the stove, apparently not having noticed he'd been late in coming home. He hesitated for a brief minute, wondering if he should come clean… but thought better of it. She'd worry herself over nothing. He hadn't actually been injured very much, mostly just a few scrapes, bumps and bruises, and the only reason he'd ended up in hospital was because he'd passed out. Not even from the fight itself.

Unless he wanted to tell her about the cause of his little blackout…

His hand clenched around the phone. How would she react to the idea that her son was a Wizard? Would she love the idea or… would she hate it?

Tsuna bit his lip and flinched at the idea. No, he wasn't anywhere near brave enough to drop something like that into his mother's lap. Not yet anyway. Not when he was this twisted up in confusion. He had so many questions of his own, how was he supposed to answer any questions she'd most-probably ask?

Closing the kitchen door as quietly as he had opened it Tsuna dragged himself away and up the stairs to his room, dialling the number the police officer had left in his message as he went. Might as well let them know the message had been received, they might call back later otherwise.

"Hello? Someone from this number called to say they found my bag?" Tsuna asked lightly to the woman who picked up the phone. "I heard big a fight happening down there and got so scared that I dropped it when I ran away. Thank you for finding it, can I come pick it up in the morning?" he asked in what was hopefully a cheerful voice.

Listening absently as the woman on the other end of the phone started asking questions about the fight he'd mentioned he searched his desk for a pair of scissors and found one in the last drawer. "Fight? No I didn't see any of it, I ran away as soon as I saw what was going on, it was scary!"

Tossing the scissors back into the desk drawer after snipping the plastic hospital tag off his wrist he turned to his closet and tucked the hospital bracelet away in the nearly unused toy chest at the back, putting everything back neatly so his mother wouldn't find it. He was pretty sure his mother didn't bother with it unless he had toys lying around. He was too tired to do it now but he'd find somewhere else to get rid of it properly later, if he tried disposing it in the house bin who knew if his mother would find it? "Yes, I'll pick it up before school tomorrow, thank you very much for your had work!" he replied to the question the woman asked about his bag. Hanging up the phone when the woman did he dug around his closet for the extra cans of hair colour he had stashed away under his spare jackets and did a few mental calculations, glad he'd bought the bulk packet when he'd gone in earlier in the week.

He guessed he was going to be sticking with brunet for a while.

Tsuna pushed the cans of hair colour back into his closet, dropped the phone onto his desk and crawled into bed without changing into his pyjamas.

He was too tired to even bother changing out of his clothes.

OoO

Tsuna dreamed.

They weren't peaceful dreams, some would have called them a nightmares but they were far too detailed to be so simple. In these dreams Tsu-kun wasn't a little kid. He didn't have blond hair and brown eyes and the only time he'd ever heard of Japan was in casual reference and in a joke made by… someone he was related to.

In some of these dreams he was younger, but in most he was older. He was taller, faster and stronger than he was in real life and whenever he caught sight of himself in a mirror he was looking at a face that was completely different from his own. Hair that was messy like his but jet black instead of caramel blond. Sharp, electric green eyes stared back at him instead of his mother's brown and a lightning bolt scar was prominently visible on his forehead.

In his dreams he wasn't a grade-schooler. He was a wizard. A wizard fighting for his life. And these dreams, when they came, they burned. He felt every moment as if he lived it himself. Felt every emotion like it was his own and owned the pain that came with every injury and suffered through each and every loss.

He flew, he fought, he laughed and argued. Explored a castle and attended lessons with other witches and wizards like himself. He made and lost friends. He lived with every intention of surviving to the next moment, the next day and the next year but always with a nasty little voice whispering seeds of doubt into his ear.

In these dreams he wasn't the only child of two distant parents. He was an orphan, sole survivor of a loving family cut down in an attack before he'd even turned two years old and he was famous for it. In his dreams he wasn't Sawada Tsunayoshi, he was Harry James Potter, The Boy Who Lived.

And that changed everything.

Now that he knew that at least a small element of the dreams he'd been having his entire life weren't just dreams he felt raw with the need to feel it again. To feel the warmth running through his body in the way it was supposed to. He wanted to be able to walk more than two steps without planting his face into the sidewalk. To be able to concentrate when he wanted to without his attention wandering. He wanted to be able to grab at his magic without being forced into nap-time whenever he tried grabbing at it.

And he did try grabbing at it, practically every day, several times a day if he could manage it. He had to suffer through the consequences each time though, everyone that knew him now knew that he was now prone to lapsing into bouts of unconsciousness. The doctors his mother took him to called it 'Narcolepsy' and prescribed him medications that had so-far proven useless in treating the 'condition'. Medication he tossed down the drain instead of taking. He knew they would end up being useless, he only fell unconscious when he poked at the 'lid' the man had left on the heat that had been with him his entire life.

Whether he was startled into doing so, if he got too excited or reached for it on purpose or not, every time he tried to pull his 'flames' up further than the tight grasp the 'lid' had on the ball it had compacted his flames in... the lid stretching over that ball of heat squashed any attempts to grab at his flames with disturbing ease it and enforced the consequences with nap-time. As in it knocked him unconscious. Every. Single. Time.

He kept on poking at the 'lid' on his magic regardless of forced nap-time for two reasons. One, because even after all the time that had passed from that day the old man had locked him down… every fibre of his being fought against it. Hated being trapped, caged like he was some kind of animal and denied reaching for the only source of heat that affected him anymore. The other reason was that he just plain needed that warmth, needed it like a drowning man needed air and he wouldn't have been able to resist its siren-call for anything.

This had to be some form of Masochism. Either that or some measure of Harry's stubbornness had somehow leaked out of Tsuna's dreams and latched onto him. Months later and he was still poking at the thing stretched over his Flames regardless of forced nap-time.

There were times though when he could force some of that heat up past the relentless grip the old man had locked his 'flames' down with. Moments of relief where he could flood his body with that delicious warmth and revel in it, discovered mostly in thanks to his 'saving people thing'.

The fight against the Sasagawa sibling's bullies had opened his eyes in more ways than one, the realization that he hadn't imagined the flames that had saved him from quite the nasty fall was one of them. The other… was in how the stupid seal over his flames worked.

It itched. He wanted to crawl out from underneath his own skin and rip at it until it dissolved but he knew he wouldn't be able to reach it that way. Every time he so much as scratched at its surface the fading amber flames, so close to the same colour of his own flames that it made it hard difficult to distinguish were his flames began and ended, he paid for it. By sleeping it off. However he was slowly getting a better idea of how it worked.

Its hold on him was at its strongest during the morning and weakened throughout the day towards evening and night-time, this was when good little boys and girls were supposed to be winding down for the day and going to sleep. This was the time that, with the right mental push, he could drown himself in as much flames as he wanted and not suffer the usual consequences until he was good and ready to. When circumstances were just right he could choose when and where he was going to drop.

Sometimes, if he was patient enough, he could drown himself in the sensation for an entire night by working himself up to a great big push. Several nights NOT touching the seal, behaving like a good little boy, before flipping the seal off as hard as he could. It took longer for it to re-establish its hold when he yanked it off that hard and, of course, the payback was almost an entire day of nap-time with several days of what felt like a hang-over...

But it was WORTH it.

For those glorious few moments he was warm, warm and free. It didn't feel the same as it had that day falling out of the tree. He was only managing to grasp at a very small portion of his abilities and probably wouldn't be able to reach for the rest until the seal holding him down either dissolved on its own or was forced to. He could live with that, it was the best he was capable of reaching for now and as desperate as he was for it he would take what he could get!

His 'Grandfather's' handy-work didn't stop with the 'Narcolepsy', he could deal with nap-time if that's all that resulted from the man's one and only visit to their house. No. Separate to the sleepy-time he had to suffer through he was also now prone to vicious headaches, ones that popped up only whenever he had one of his 'Harry Potter' dreams. The mental burn of these dreams followed him into the waking world. Each dream bringing forth something familiar to him in the same way English was and he managed to finally match the English term with its Japanese counterpart.

Migraines.

He couldn't even tell his mother what was causing them, even when she brought him to the doctors again and they started asking questions. He knew what would happen if he told anyone the truth, his dreams causing migraines? There was only one term for that and he already knew the Japanese counterpart for that one. Crazy wasn't exactly an uncommon word.

He wasn't crazy, he knew exactly what was causing his headaches. Where he'd once been able to have these dreams without feeling like his head was being split open and roasted over an open fire Tsuna now couldn't escape the near-crippling pain that now came with them. The only thing that had changed, or had happened, was that encounter with his grey haired 'Grandpa'.

The migraines didn't seem directly related to the 'lid' keeping him trapped but they were most-definitely a side-effect of it being there.

There WAS an upside to these dreams, side-effects that followed him into the waking world. Bullies no longer seemed quite so threatening, or threatening at all. Getting chased and harassed by kids in elementary school wasn't exactly on the same level as being hunted by Death Eaters and Snatchers. After a while he got sick of dodging them all and snapped. Turned around and made them regret targeting him after a vicious tug at his hair broke the last thread of his patience. The resulting brawl had been a long time coming.

He didn't need someone tugging on his hair when he was already suffering from a headache. If he had to walk around in pain then damned if he wasn't going to share it. He liked being generous that way. Maybe now they'd think twice before picking on a 'soft' target. 'Kittens' had claws and even 'bunnies' would go for the jugular if threatened enough. So help the next person who compared him to either of those animals again though, they'd earn themselves a good hard punch to the face or perhaps a kick to the fork of their legs. He was open to dishing out either of those. He just wished he could figure out what it was about him that made him look like such a tempting target.

He was getting heartily sick of this stupid game of cat and mouse the bullies of Namimori were playing with him.

OoO

Settling into a routine over the next couple of months Tsuna put everything he had into pushing against the seal placed over him. He knew it had been placed on him with the best of intentions but… it was clearly faulty and needed to be removed. He just needed to be careful with how he went about doing it.

Daylight was spent preserving as much energy as he could, the hideouts he had all over the town almost became like second homes in how often he visited each one and how long he spent in them. School hours were spent keeping his head down during class and on the computers at the library during each break or leafing through the scarce few books on magic the school owned. It was all pretty much fairy tales and fiction novels but it was a way to pass the time as the hours dragged on by.

He didn't really expect to find anything on the internet about magic, let alone whatever manifestation of it he was expressing, (because the Statue of Secrecy was a thing wasn't it?) but it didn't really hurt. Reading through the random stories that popped up was, at the very least, entertaining enough in its sheer absurdity that he caught himself having to stifle a laugh every now and then.

Who had ever heard of vampires that sparkled in the sunlight? Werewolves that played lacrosse without anyone who was watching the game noticing? Some of the things he came across were so hilariously inaccurate he had to get up and walk away to stop himself laughing out loud in the library.

He waved away invitations by the book club, practically every day, and sat himself at a desk to 'study' or plop himself down on a bean-bag to nap lunchtime away. He spent some time after school helping the librarian close down the library, more to avoid the bulk of the kids going home than for any other reason and made his cautious way home afterwards. He ate dinner with his mother and went directly upstairs to bed.

Or at least his mother thought he was in bed.

Three days out of the week it was actually true. He was saving his energy for the other days in the week. Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays were spent curled up in bed, dead to the world and recuperating from what he did on the nights of the other four days in the week. Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays were a different story.

On those days he washed the temporary dye out of his hair and stuffed his bed with a few jackets as he waited for his hair to dry. It was stupidly easy to slip out of the house without his mother noticing. She never remembered to lock the front door.

There was a recently abandoned bowling alley not too far from his house, the owner had gone bankrupt and had attempted to sell the place with absolutely no luck, it had been left alone to slowly fall apart. Tsuna had only found a way in by complete accident, having been taking a 'short cut' through the alleyway that ran along the side of the building and had fallen over his own feet. He didn't know how it had happened but he'd ended up tripping and falling through a ground-level window. One that had apparently been left unlocked.

The bowling lanes made for a great practice arena, or at the very least the seats at the END of those lanes made for great napping lounges.

The isolated location was perfect, at least for accessing his magic. The ability he was always drawing on was dangerous, not just in the sheer level of heat it generated but in the spiking levels of emotion it seemed to drown him in. Normally he was calm and collected, nervous most of the time now due to the seal placed on him, irritated when pushed, (but then who wouldn't get irritated with the number of people thinking he made a nice target?), he was cautious and mostly level-headed.

So where had that temper come from?

During the fight that had allowed him to reach past the seal to his flames… he'd felt violent. Vicious. Like he wanted to continue fighting no matter what. He'd been angry, not just angry but furious in a way he didn't like. It felt natural, but it wasn't. He hadn't been like that before, hadn't felt like that before his grandfather had visited either. Was this another side-effect of the seal or was this the flames themselves? It might even be a mixture of both. Who knew how dangerous that kind of affected temper would be if left alone?

Whatever the reason, he needed to control it. Harry Potter had been prone to bouts of rage but he'd learned how. If Harry had learned to control it then so could he. He had to have been getting those dreams for a reason.

Right?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap. If I thought writing the LAST chapter was a bitch, THIS one took the cake. It didn’t want to end. This was a good place to stop so I’ll let you guys have it now instead of making you wait a few weeks for the next chapter. 
> 
> So back stories for Iemitsu and Nana and an explanation for the need to Seal Tsuna’s flames away. Excuse me while I go and crawl into bed now. Ima gonna rock that Foetal Curl like you wouldn’t believe.
> 
> SO tired.

In the year between the ages of five and six years old Tsuna managed to get used to the unnatural cold the seal placed over his magic had left him with and, as predicted, he was slowly starting to feel numb to the sensation. He was even able to function almost as normal with a bit of practice. He learned to cope with the dizzy spells and vertigo, how best to ride them out and prevent them. What triggered an attack and what shortened the duration.

He layered clothing, adopted almost religious use of scarves and mittens, bought every kind of glove imaginable and went through pairs of socks like a heavy smoker went through cigarettes. He was always losing at least one out of every second pair and as a result stopped caring if they matched and just pulled on what he could get his hands on, the result was often eye-catching but strangely fun. 

He also figured out ways to curb his newfound ability to trip over practically nothing, he just had to take it slow, make sure he knew exactly where he was putting his feet and look where he was going. It was simple in theory but putting it into practice was a surprisingly difficult habit to get into, it had taken him the better part of three painful months to make himself adhere to the new self-imposed rules and he was still backsliding.

It probably didn’t help that four nights of the week he was free of these restrictions.

He lived for those nights.

It was about the only reason he even dragged himself out of bed sometimes. The only reason he kept dragging himself to school and back, why he didn’t just give up and roll under the constant harassment he took from what felt like all corners of the world. For a few precious hours he was everything he wasn’t during the day.

Warm. Strong. Coordinated. 

The bowling alley he’d found when he was five fast became a home-away-from-home. He smuggled in blankets and pillows, stole his father’s camping gear and made himself a little hideout where he could practice calling his flame to him in the comfort of thermal clothing and sleeping bags.

It took him months to learn the exact steps. Months of relentless, stubborn and persistent war against the stupid seal to flip the lid off his flames and flood himself in as much warmth as he wanted, whenever he wanted. He knew he was still a long way away from fully getting rid of it but he was finally making headway against it. More to that he was slowly learning what these flames did and how they worked.

He could warm himself up, that was the obvious one. The second thing he could do with his flames was light things on fire, again that was obvious. What wasn’t as obvious was that any fire lit by said flames continued to produce the kind of warmth that soaked through his skin and warmed him up regardless of whether he continued to keep the lid on his own flames open or let it slam shut. He’d learned that one on an absolutely horrible wet day when he’d been soaked almost all the way through because he’d fallen into one too many puddles. 

He’d been cold, frustrated and miserable when he’d realized that he’d run out of matches so he’d reached for his flames without thinking and lit the little charcoal burner his father had used to cook snacks for himself on the porch. The kindling had caught on fire and had lit up the coals lining the bottom of the grill in a merry play of orange. The heat from that fire had been bone-melting and wonderful. 

The seal had been quick to slam down on him that time, it had been early-days in the fight against it and he’d woken up gutted with disappointment. Right up until he realized the small charcoal burner was still producing the same bone-melting heat that had washed over him before. 

The coals had still been hot and the fire had still been burning.

He discovered that as long as the fire had enough fuel and burned with even just the tiniest hint of orange then the flames would warm him up the same way as if they running through him. He’d almost started crying. It had been the first major discovery he’d had regarding his flames, the first thing that had shown him that he wasn’t just wasting his time. It had then been the gateway into his next discovery.

Every chance he had after that had him thinking of ways to preserve that flame in something portable. He tried everything from jam jars to tin cans and ceramic bowls. He even tested pots, pans, tea kettles and everything in between. He raided second-hand shops for all manner of containers and picked through the recycling his mother prepared to throw out.

Glass, metal, paper, plastic, cardboard, fibre glass, stone or clay. It didn’t matter, if he could get his hands on it he tried it.

Sadly it seemed as though precious metals made for the best containers. He’d found a small and tarnished silver flask on another trip to the second hand store, finding it buried half under a bunch of brass plates and gave it a shot. He hadn’t expected much, his hope of finding a passable container had been dwindling, so far the best had been a jug, (a brass one), found on an earlier trip but even that hadn’t lasted very long.

The cashier had let him have it for a steal too, she had gotten rather familiar with him and the choices he made and hadn’t looked very closely at what he brought to her to bag. To be fair he hadn’t even realized what he had until he’d cleaned it up in preparation for the experiment. He’d tested his flame on an empty planter once, clumps of dirt still sticking to its sides, and had regretted it immediately afterwards when he’d been showered with smouldering dirt and ash. Needless to say that had been the first and last time he’d tested his flame against a dirty container. 

The silver flask had held his flame and hadn’t melted from the heat. It hadn’t buckled, warped or cracked. It not only held its shape but once his flames settled inside… it radiated heat like the best and most amazing hot-water-bottle in existence.

He carried it everywhere with him.

He slept with it tucked in his shirt at night and curled around it for warmth. It sat in a fold of his scarf, tucked in a glove or in a pocket when he was awake. He took it into the bath one night and dropped it in tub, if the water hadn’t then taken on the same heating properties as the flames he may have started crying. As it was his flames had, (luckily!), still been merrily burning away in the flask when he’d drained it, they were completely unharmed by being submerged in water. His mother no longer had to wrestle him into the bathtub, instead she now had trouble getting him out, she now waited until he was too drunk on the heat to protest when she finally dragged him out of the water. 

With a little trial and error, (more error than trial), Tsuna discovered that the flames lasted longer if he poured more emotion into it, like the Patronus Charm in his dreams. If he lit his flames with enough of the right emotion… then the flames he planted in the flask could last as for up to as long as two weeks without the need to relight it! 

The emotion he realized worked the best for him to remember and channel into his flames was the one that had him running to the Sasagawa siblings rescue. The will to protect. That ‘saving people thing’ he’d picked up from the teenager in his dreams. If he drowned himself in that moment, that feeling and whole-hearted emotion… the flames he produced always burned the brightest and warmest. Anything else just left a bad taste in his mouth.

That flask was his life-line in a lot of ways.

The best thing he realized was that ANYTHING poured into the flask took on those same warming qualities. Water was a given but he tried milk with the same result, every kind of juice imaginable, (which had also had his taste-buds dancing), and had then tried tea… and had instantly become utterly and hopelessly addicted to drinking from it. The world was brighter and every thought, action and reaction was faster with his flames running through his system and when he flipped that mental lid? It was as if he had shrugged off mortal limitations. The feeling was always fleeting and momentary but for that brief time… he felt like he could take on the world and win. 

The flask also helped soothe away the ache when pressed to his forehead during a migraine faster than his usual method of finding somewhere dark and quiet to ride it out. He’d found a way to cope with the daylight effects of the seal but he wasn’t about to give up now. He still had to deal with the clamping aspects of it. He may have found a way to… drown out the effects but they were still there and they needed to go. All it would take was ONE accidental reach for his flames and subsequent let-go at the wrong place and at the wrong time and it could spell death for him. He’d found some relief and now he could finally start concentrating on piecing his life back together without the constant cold dragging him down.

Along with the flames boosting his natural abilities to ridiculous levels it did the same to his emotions, and it was a LOT more difficult to temper these emotions than it was to control said flames. He tried his best though, how was he going to be able to live with himself if he lost himself every time he wanted to warm himself up?

How had that body-guard put it when he’d been five? Rage-monster. He didn’t want to turn into a rage-monster but he knew he was close to it, teetering on the hair-thin edge of it and the only way he knew how to avoid that particular fate was to practice untill he figured out how to ride it out. Which was a hell of a lot easier said than done.

The first emotion he’d noticed when he’d first pulled on his flames so far had been fear, brought on by falling out of the tree. The second time after that had been rage, not on behalf of himself but on behalf of another. He had been terrified that the rage from the time he had helped the Sasagawa siblings would be part-and-parcel with the flames but after a while he’d discovered that those fears had been, mostly, unfounded.

The best way to describe it was like being hyped up on a sugar-rush.

His flames fanned his emotions into a fever pitch and left him staggering afterwards. It was hard to pull that back to concentrate on control, he always ended up throwing his all into whatever he put his mind to and only just managed to remember to fill up his flask before he passed out each time. The gung-ho attitude was exhausting, and on the tip of his tongue were words that startled him each and every time he lit his flame.

He did everything ‘With his Dying Will.’

It was honestly the creepiest thing that had ever tried tripping out of his mouth. Dying Will? What the hell was that? He hadn’t heard anything like that even in his dreams as Harry Potter, and that was really saying something given the amount of assorted gribbly monsters, plants and people the Wizard had tangled with over the course of his life. 

Thinking of his flames as something closely related to death and dying made a scary amount of sense though. Wizards, hell even regular humans, were capable of amazing feats when push came to shove. Accidental magic was one thing, then there were the stories you could pick up from just about anywhere of people who did impossible things when the chips were down. Most people called it adrenaline, fear giving that almighty push needed to get things done, and others just accepted it as a fact of life. 

It certainly fit with the way the flames flipped his emotions into overdrive.

He knew there was more to his flames than what he was accessing and it was driving him to distraction. All he could do and all he could reach for was the heat, and as nice as that was… it wasn’t enough. He wanted to throw himself into his magic and he wanted to do it now. He was fast running out of patience with the slow progress he was making with the seal and even though he was slowly managing to draw out the time limit for how long he could hold the lid off his flames… it was frustrating beyond belief. The thought that he could whether through six years of this had been hopelessly naive. 

If only one year had been this hard… was he even going to make it to the next year without giving up?

Not that he wasn’t coming up with his own answers, he was slowly, agonizingly slowly, starting pick up little bits and pieces of information. Some of these came from playing around with his flames but most realizations came in the form of accidents. 

A class project where everyone had to plant sunflowers in old ice-cream containers, a classmate bumping into him from behind and he’d dropped a full flask of his precious tea over the seeds directly after planting them. A few tears over the waste and a week later Tsuna was the ‘proud’ owner of the biggest and brightest sunflowers in the class. 

The gardening club were now butting heads with the book club over which club Tsuna was going to join. He didn’t care, as long as they didn’t bother him with it he was going to ignore them both, he didn’t have the energy to waste getting in the middle of that argument. He’d just let them argue it out and then turn down the winner. Problem solved.

The teacher allowed him take the flowers home when he asked if he could and had ruffled his hair as he left, he had a feeling the woman thought he was bringing them home for his mother. It hadn’t been his first thought but maybe they’d make a good gift when he was done with them. There had to be a reason why his sunflowers had ended up growing up so bright and healthy and he was pretty sure he knew the reason why.

He hadn’t noticed it at school, the classrooms were large and airy with at least one window open at all times and the doors constantly opened and closed, then there were the fans and air vents… but now that he’d brought the sunflowers home he realised they were giving off a subtle wave of warmth. It was nowhere near the kind of heat coming off his flask but it was still a very welcome discovery, it was a bit like what he remembered sunlight had felt like. A warmth that lightly brushed up against his skin.

The seeds the flowers produced grew up the same as the parent flowers, only with very subtle hints of orange threading through the veins of the petals. Planting these flowers in their garden had warmth radiating all the way to the veranda. The neighbours started to compliment his mother on her gardening skills, only to then focus on him when she giggled and mentioned that she hadn’t planted them. 

“Tsu-kun likes to play with the flowers! He’s such a sweet boy!”

Correcting his mother’s mistaken impression would have been an exercise in frustration so he just let her continue thinking he loved gardening. It wasn’t like the impression was doing him any harm, if anything the neighbours found it charming and ‘swapped’ packets of flower and vegetable seeds for the sunflowers he had left over. He didn’t mind handing them out, the flowers grew obnoxiously large and the plants produced more seeds than he was ever going to be able to find room for. 

Following the discovery that plants fed with the flame-saturated water/tea Tsuna, very grudgingly, tested out exactly how much of the precious flame-infused liquid various plants needed in order to produce the same warming effects as the sunflowers. Fortunately for him he only ever needed a drop from his flask into a watering can and he had enough for the plants surrounding his house. Flowers in a vase of more diluted water even managed to warm his room up to bearable levels.

These discoveries may have been small, but when put together it made the all difference between unbearable and bearable. It was the only reason he made it through the year without breaking down.

OoO

Tsuna abandoned his cautious experiments with plants and flowers in the year he turned seven, not out of choice but out of necessity, he could no longer afford it. He needed every drop of energy he could squeeze of out the flames he kept in his flask and he no longer had the luxury of wasting it in the way he had been doing.

The change came in the form of a post card he found in the mail one morning. Or rather, the postcard would have been a warning had he been paying any sort of attention to it. Instead of reading it Tsuna looked at the front, checked the sender and immediately decided it wasn’t worth reading. 

It was from his father.

This was the only way he ever heard from the man. On New Year’s day and Christmas his father would send him greetings in the form of postcards. This year was the same only this time the card had polar bears on it. Staring wordlessly at the small rectangle of card the seven year old twitched. Was he was supposed to believe his father was working in the north pole? With polar bears? When his mother was under the impression the man worked for an oil-rig?

Tsuna carefully checked the letterbox for any more surprises and shut it lightly, making sure his shaking hands didn’t accidentally slam it closed. He carefully ducked back into the house and tossed the ‘letter’ on the kitchen table for his mother to read and coo over and got ready for school. He didn’t bother getting excited over the postcard, he’d made that mistake when he was six and been bitterly disappointed.

He didn’t know what he’d been hoping for more, seeing his father again or getting an explanation for what had happened the last time the man had been home. Things were different now, he knew what he wanted more this time and he’d long since run out of patience. He wanted to pin the man down for answers and not let him go until he got them.

School was uneventful, breaks were spent in the library as always and he then spent the hours until classes ended either by staring out the window or mourning over the dwindling supply of flames he had left in his flask. He was close to running out, the flames inside had already extinguished and while the tea inside was still lovely and warm… he only had about a cups worth left. He was going to have to refill it very soon or he was going to have to suffer the cold until he finally worked up the energy to flip the seal again.

He left for home after helping the librarian close up and began the trek home as usual and kept an eye out for any potential bullies… which was why he missed it when a man followed him after exiting the school gates. He simply didn’t pay attention. 

That mistake nearly cost him his life.

He’d let his guard down. He was so used to his assailants being around his age or a year or two older that he hadn’t even thought twice about the adults he walked past every day. He certainly hadn’t thought anything unusual of the brown haired man that followed him one day. Tsuna had seen the man in the few days previous, shopping, walking a dog, and had even seen him sitting on a park bench reading a newspaper when his mother had stopped by to chat with the local mothers. The man hadn’t even looked up at him, made any sign that the man was in any way interested in him or his mother and nothing about him had seemed suspicious in the least. 

Tsuna learned his lesson the hard way.

The man had been standing over the bonnet of his car one day with a map spread out over it when he saw him next, with a phone in one hand and a lost look on his tanned face. He would have walked right past the man had the man not caught his eyes with his own and waved him to a stop, seemingly to ask for directions. 

“Hello boya!” the man had greeted warmly with a grin crinkling the skin at the corners of his eyes. He tucked his phone away into a pocket so he could crouch down to his level and held the map out to him. “Can you tell me how to get to Namimori Library? I think I’m lost.”

Tsuna laughed despite himself. “You must have a very bad sense of direction, the Library is pretty far from here but I can tell you where you can catch the bus.” 

“Oh? Where?” the man asked, green eyes tracing the map even as he held it out for him to take. 

He fell for it, moving closer without a second thought, fully and completely taken in by this guy’s act. Focusing on the map Tsuna didn’t notice the man drop his end of the map and instead took it into both hands so he could see it properly, stretching it out so he could get a better look. He scanned the map, turned it the right way up, located the library and was just about to turn around to show the man when he was grabbed roughly from behind and a wet cloth was pressed over his mouth and nose.

He didn’t even understand what was going on at first. He instinctively dropped the map and went to claw at the arms holding it to his face but felt his arms go weak. It never even occurred to him to try reaching for his flames, it all happened so fast. He had just enough time to register the chemical smell of whatever was soaked into the cloth that was pressed against his face before his world went dark. 

OoO

Tsuna regained consciousness with a bad taste in his mouth and a foul smell tickling through his airways. He kept still, wanting to avoid the nauseating effects sitting up usually had on him whenever he was knocked into nap-time and waited till the queasiness in his stomach started to fade. What the hell had happened? He’d been walking home from school, he’d stopped to help that guy find the library and then…

The man had knocked him unconscious. With a chemical. Probably the same chemical that had left the bad taste in his mouth. Flinching minutely as the memory returned he forced himself to relax even as his heart pounded in his chest. Had he just been kidnapped?

Carefully keeping as still as he possibly could Tsuna opened one eye and had to squint through the hair that had fallen over his face. He was lying on his side on the floor of an old, and empty, building. That was obvious by the lack of furniture and bare concrete floor, it must have formerly been an office building given the white board still attached to the wall and the stray pieces of cubicle parts lying around.

His kidnapper was facing the window, staring outside and down, that meant they were either on a second or third floor. Shifting lightly Tsuna tried to move and immediately stopped himself when he realized his hands had been tied behind his back. He wasn’t going to make any noise, not with his kidnapper just across the room regardless of the fact that the man was busy arguing with whoever was on the other end of the phone conversation he was having.

“…blond. You said the kid was blond. I've got a brunet here. The hell is going on?”

Oh god, his kidnapper was an idiot. He didn’t know if this was good or bad, on one hand it was great that this guy was apparently too dumb to check the bag Tsuna had been carrying. Not only would that have confirmed his identity it would have also revealed the box of comb-in hair colour Tsuna always kept on him. On the other hand… as stupid as this guy was he might just consider killing him and continue on looking for his ‘real’ target.

And he was this man’s target, that much was obvious. The man had said he was looking for a blond, barring Sasagawa Kyoko and he was the only blond in his school, the only blond boy in the area.

“Don’t fuck with me! Your information had better be one hundred percent positive because I didn’t sign up to murder innocent fucking kids without reason! He had better not be a body double! Check your facts and get back to me, If Sawada Iemitsu catches wind of this kid going missing I’d rather not have the entire CEDEF and the Vongola crawling up my ass! How do I know you haven’t just let me walk into a goddamned trap?”

Tsuna felt the blood drain out of his face. 

This… was about his father? What the hell had the man gotten him mixed up in that a… hit man? A hit man had kidnapped him and was apparently waiting on confirmation in order to carry out a hit? He’d long since guessed that his father wasn’t exactly a ‘man of the earth’, as his mother put it, and he was hardly going to believe the man raised polar bears in Antarctica or wherever but… A hit man going after his family? What? Why? 

He burned the names the man had mentioned into his memory. CEDEF. Vongola. As soon as he got out he was going to look those names up and. Get. Some. Answers. And he was going to get out. Get away from this idiot who had stumbled over some hair dye. He was going to find the nearest police station and tell them what happened. He was going to escape.

With his Dying Will.

Flipping the lid off his flames had never been so easy and his flames burned silently through a good solid section of the rope that held his arms bound behind his back, thoughts turned to crystal in his mind and suddenly the world was in sharp and perfect contrast. He knew that he could, if he wanted to, lunge forward and grab this man’s face with his bare hands and just let the world BURN for a little bit, all that would be left of the man would be a pile of fine ash. 

Harry Potter had done it once so he knew how to do it. It wouldn’t even be all that difficult. However… if he got rid of this one hit-man, there would be others. Others he’d have to burn after this one and once he burned one it would only get easier and easier to burn others. Once he took that step… he didn’t know if he’d be able to pull himself back from that kind of act. 

Burning the man into a pile of ash would be very easy right now… but would it be right? He could call it self-defence until he was blue in the face and ran out of air but would it really BE self-defence if he was fully capable of running away? Of convincing the man who held him captive that he DID in fact have the wrong kid? 

It would be tricky, as much of an idiot this guy was a single slip up would give the man all the reason he needed to put a bullet into his skull but the only other choice he had was… not something he was even willing to consider, not if he could help it. He’d keep that as a last resort, something to consider if and only after he’d exhausted all other options. 

If he couldn’t convince this guy he had the wrong kid. If he couldn’t successfully run away…

Pushing the thought out of his mind for the moment Tsuna reached a quick hand out over to his backpack and brushed his fingers across the surface, sending his flames forward to silently consume it. If he didn’t manage to get away then he wasn’t going to give the man the chance to discover his mistake in not checking the bag. Thank god he’d switched from using the spray on hair colour to the cheaper comb-in one last year, the can wouldn’t have been nearly so easy to destroy. 

The man didn’t turn around at the brief flash of orange that lit up the room and Tsuna allowed himself a relieved breath and tried not to feel disappointed at the reaction. He wondered when he was going to find someone who COULD see the flames, he was honestly starting to look forward to the day he’d find some clue as to what was going on with him and his family… besides drawing hit-men.

The man had a gun sitting up on the window-sill next to his hand with a silencer attached, there was a sport’s bag in the corner of the room and a crate sitting to the side with a whole bunch of loose-leaf papers littering the floor. School and hospital records from what Tsuna could see as he slowly sat himself up. This man had done his research. Exactly how long had the man been watching him?

The man had been in his records, had likely noticed that his health and grades had taken a sharp dip two years ago, was that what had made the man think he was dealing with a body double? His hair colour could have been the straw that broke the camel’s back as far as doubts as to his identity went. Looking at that this man didn’t seem as stupid as his first impression would have him believe but… a panicked and nervous man with a gun wasn’t exactly a better trade-off.

Trying to scare this guy would be a mistake, he was just going to have to play up on the man’s first impression. Body double. He could do that. He had an ace up his sleeve, one he hadn’t told anyone about, one he’d gone to great lengths to conceal and he’d never been so glad he’d done so.

The man had been speaking to his partner in English. It was a language ‘Sawada Tsunayoshi’ shouldn’t know. A language that hadn’t even been introduced into the school curriculum yet and one he hadn’t so much as hinted at knowing. The man had his grades and health reports, it wouldn’t take very much to believe that he was struggling with another language. Also if the man thought he was a body double that meant there would be no further reason to try and go for his mother, cause if the kid was a plant… then the mother would surely be one as well, one that was more dangerous to confront. 

All Tsuna had to do now was sell the idea.

Swallowing against the bile that rose up in his throat at the idea of this man coming anywhere near his mother he carefully rolled himself up onto his knees, keeping a hold of the rope he had burned through with both hands so it wouldn’t make any noise falling to the floor. Pretending he was still tied up he slowly edged his way to the door, never once turning his back on the man. Remembering the feeling he had woken up with he shifted his face into a dizzy look and made himself stumble. 

His goal wasn’t to make an escape, (as easy as that would be right now), his goal was to get the man’s attention. Grab a bit of the very real fear running through him and act the part of a body-double.

Easier said than done, he was having a hard time keeping his face from shifting into a glare. This man was a killer and he was also having trouble trying to feel intimidated by him, which had to be some kind of irony right there. Death Eaters were scarier than this guy, so were snatchers and Voldmort won the prize for sheer fear-factor. Was it bad that he was comparing real-life adversaries with the ones in his dreams? Right now he kind of wished Harry Potter’s reaction to fear wasn’t quite so infectious, he needed to look intimidated and scared right now, not confrontational! 

Harmless. Fluffy. The man had read his records so he had to know he health problems, he could play on that... Allowing himself to trip backward Tsuna caught himself up against the wall and let his hair hang over his face, panted a little as if he had just woken up and was having more than a little trouble focusing. See? Look. Brown hair. Not blond. Sick and weak. Not who you’re looking for at all!

He allowed himself to slip down the wall a little and tilted his head a bit to get a better look at his kidnapper, peering through his hair at the man. He knew that if he caught the man’s eyes fully with his own this little act he was pulling wouldn’t hold much water, the glare he was fighting would be all too visible, but if he squinted through it… it would hopefully make him look like he was fighting tears.

Tears. There was an idea. Sad things. He needed to think sad things. Now. Homeless puppies, stray kittens, injured bunnies. He needed to pull up the emotional-boosting effects of his flames! What a time for the world to go crystal-clear! Push away the clarity, bring on the emotional overdrive! His life wasn’t the only one in danger, if he didn’t pull this off then his mother would be in danger too! 

There, that did it. He felt a tear trace the outer curve of his cheek and felt his breath hitch at the idea of his mother having to face a hit-man. By the time the man fully turned around Tsuna’s vision was swimming with tears and it wasn’t very difficult to flinch away from the man when he moved.

There was a silent standoff for a moment, the man then lowered the mobile he was holding so that he set it down on the window sill and pick up his gun instead. 

“So Sleeping Beauty finally wakes. Nothing personal kid, but business is business. First up, your name.”

“Ha… Sa… Sawada Tsunayoshi.” Tsuna stuttered as he tightened the grip he had on the rope he was holding, this man… wasn’t going to like being ‘lied’ to. He was right. Tsuna had barely gotten his name out before the man was suddenly right in front of him, crossing the distance between them in three long-legged strides and slapping his free hand across his face. 

The world spun for a moment and it was all he could do to keep a hold of the rope behind his back with both hands. He tasted blood, must have cut his cheek on his teeth, and tried not to pass out as the man lifted him up by the front of his jacket. He was pretty sure that hit would have knocked him unconscious had he not been actively channelling flames. Tears sprang for real from his eyes as his cheek throbbed with the hit, they even continued to fall as he squeezed his eyes shut. Don’t glare. Don’t glare. 

“Don’t lie to me kid. I don’t like dealing with liars. Do you know what I do to liars? I kill them. So, I’ll ask you again. What’s your name?”

“H… Harry Potter.” Tsuna replied as he forcibly made himself slump in the man’s grip, fighting the very real urge to bite the man. The man’s hand was within reach, as was his face. All he’d have to do was let go of the rope he was pretending to still be bound by and reach forward… but no. He’d started this, chosen the path he wanted to take already, he wasn’t about to risk this man targeting his mother.

The man’s eyebrows rose at the name and instantly switched to English, probably to test him “Age?”

“Seven.” Tsuna mumbled, staying as limp as possible. He was supposed to be feeling helpless. Scared. He was hoping the man was taking his shaking as fright. Fighting the urge to burn the man’s face off was starting to physically hurt. The muscles in his arms were protesting against the grip he had on the rope he was forcing himself to keep holding behind his back.

“Hmph! You sound British, where did they pick you up? London?”

“Privet Drive, Little Whinging Surry.” He replied, making sure that accent sounded across loud and clear. The question may have sounded rhetorical but Tsuna wasn’t about to let go of the chance to hammer in the idea that he was a body double in as hard and firmly as he possibly could. 

“Son of a bitch.” The man muttered, dropping him to the floor. “I knew this hit was going far too smoothly for such a high profile target!”

High profile? Biting his lip against a pained groan Tsuna carefully wiped the tears away from his vision and watched the man sharply as he turned to retrieve his phone. He seemed convinced he’d gotten the wrong kid and was now speaking to whoever had hired him for the job, relaying the information he’d just ‘retrieved’ from him.

“He’s not lying!” The man snarled into the other end of the phone. “Do you think I don’t know when someone’s lying to me? The kid is showing none of the signs! Hey kid! What did the guy who picked you up look like?”

Tsuna jumped, and then forced himself to cringe back. “He was big guy, like a giant. He said I could leave my relatives and go to school.” He said, thinking of the big burly man who had rescued Harry Potter from his relatives house. Casting his mind to his father this time he fixed the man’s face firmly in his mind. “He was blond… and he said… to call him Papa.”

“Of course he did.” the man snorted in disgust as he turned back to his phone conversation. “Can’t have the kid’s body double calling him anything else can we?”

He’d bought it. Bought it as if everything he’d just said was the truth… All of it was the truth in its own way, some of it had just occured in his dreams instead of reality. Tsuna almost wanted to crow at that victory as he fell back into the crystal clarity he’d been pushing back in favour of the more emotional intensity of his flames, and eyed the door he hadn’t considered going for earlier. Now that the man was completely sure he had the wrong target… it was about time he made his escape.

He wasn’t going to be able to keep up the terrified act for very much longer.

There were two exits. The window the man was now staring out of and the doorway leading out of the room. Out of the two the window would probably be the easiest to get to but not necessarily the safest, one leap and he’d be outside and he could use his flames to cushion his fall. However the man still had the gun in his other hand and seemed too agitated to put it down, the man would shoot him while he was falling out of the window. 

He was going to have to take his chances with the door.

The building was unfamiliar, he had no idea where the exits were or even if the doors were locked or not but it was his only real hope for a getaway. The man, having had his plan busted, was now planning on using him as a believable hostage at a later date.

“… almost perfect double! All we’d have to do is bleach his hair and give him some contact lenses and he’d fool anyone! We can even make it look like we killed him here and just keep him till he becomes useful! Sawada can’t keep his kid in hiding forever and when he finally brings him out we’ll have the perfect bluff!”

Okay. Yeah. Now would be a good time to get going. He didn’t want to hear any more of this. He’d want to hit his own head against the wall in sheer pain. Idiot. This guy was an idiot and he’d overestimated this guy’s intelligence by a mile! How exactly did the man think he was going to be able to keep him?

Urgh. Time to make tracks. If he stayed any longer the man might come up with a few MORE brilliant ideas.

Letting go of the rope he had been clutching onto Tsuna coiled it up and tied a careful loop around one end of it. The man had so helpfully supplied the rope, it would be a shame leave it behind and not use it, slipping his sneakers off to ensure complete silence Tsuna tiptoed across the room and slipped out of the open door. God this man really was a complete idiot, at least LOCK THE DOOR if you were planning on keeping someone hostage!

Using the two years’ worth of experience he had at sneaking out of his own house Tsuna managed to close the door behind him without alerting the man of his getaway. He secured the loop he had created around the handle of the door and then tied the rope to the other door across the short hallway. He didn’t have enough rope to completely trap the man in the room but hopefully this would buy him enough time to get out of the building.

Finding the stairwell was easy, the building was a simple one and Tsuna all but bolted down the stairs. He almost darted right out of the building when he remembered that the man, if he hadn’t already discovered him missing, would still be looking out the window still. If he darted straight out into the street… the man could spot him. Easily. Should he try and make a run for it anyway? Would the man shoot him at this distance? Would he want to ‘waste’ the opportunity to keep him for the plan he was cooking up with whoever had hired him?

A filthy stream of swearwords, a rattling noise and several loud ‘twips’ sounded. Gunshots. He’d bet his left leg that the man had shot through the door to get out and those the sound had been the silencer altering the sound of the gunshots.

Right. He didn’t exactly have a choice. It was either take the chance and run or have his plan fall through. 

Was that even a choice?

He ran.

OoO

Lal Mirch didn’t hold back. When she heard that someone had put a hit out on Sawada Iemitsu’s son she kicked his face in. Or rather she gave it her best shot, sadly the man survived with just a bruise to his name but it didn’t stop her from wanting to continue kicking the man up and down the headquarters. She knew how word had gotten out about his family, the idiot was always bragging, waving pictures around to just about anyone he was talking to and apparently hadn’t given a single thought to the consequences of doing so.

Now Iemitsu’s innocent son was going to pay the price, a seven year old Sky with his flames sealed, cut down before he even had a chance to furl those new and fragile wings. She didn’t want to see it. Didn’t want to have to be the one to discover the kid’s body but what choice did she have in going out to search? None. The thought of such a young Sky out lost in the cold with a hit-man on his tail made her blood boil. Worse, she knew who was responsible for it and wanted to kill the moron herself. 

On the off chance she could find the boy before the hit man did… she was going to be making sure Iemitsu paid for his lapse in protocol. In blood and pain. What was the point of preparing a body double if Iemitsu was going to blow the ruse before it could even be used? Now they were going to have to figure out what to do with the young Rain they had intended on introducing to the mafia world as Iemitsu’s son! Well, at the very least Basil would make a good future addition to the CEDEF with a little training...

She wouldn’t have been able to keep herself on standby for word to come back to her even if she had wanted to… staying in the Sawada household was that uncomfortable. Merely being in the presence of Iemitsu’s wife was enough to make her hair stand on end and her skin crawl. Seeing a former Guardian brought so low, someone who’d had so much potential… was too unnerving to stomach.

Sawada Nana, formerly Tachibana, had once been a powerful woman. Fierce and charismatic her potential as a Guardian had been overwhelming. Nana had been the leader of a small gang of teenagers when she’d met Iemitsu and she had been so raw with her instincts as a budding Mist that instead of trying to get to know him… she’d punched him in the face. She’d been hit so hard by Sky Attraction that she’d lashed back in the only way she’d known how to at the time.

Iemitsu still called it ‘love at first sight’.

Upon Harmonizing with the man she’d fully unlocked her flame. The woman had been fine with it at the time, to her the Guardian bond she’d formed had been the most romantic thing she’d ever heard of and the explanation of flames and how it all connected to the Mafia sent the woman into raptures. Training to use her flames had revealed an uncommonly powerful flame and an effortless ability to channel it. For a while she had been considered as the Mafia world’s brightest up-and-comer.

Right up until it came time for her to use her flames in battle against a real opponent.

The attack had come out of seemingly nowhere and she been ill-prepared for it, hadn’t even come anywhere near close to finishing her training. Had, in fact, only just started learning how to channel her flames through her chosen weapon, a flame-reactive bokken, and had reacted on instinct. When she’d gone to use her flames to help Iemitsu she’d gotten carried away and let the floodgates loose. She’d completely destroyed someone’s mind and irreparably broken them. In her horror over what she’d done and how effortless it had been… she’d turned her flame on herself and rejected it so completely that she’d effectively sealed her own flame.

These days the woman, now a shadow of her former self, used her flame-reactive bokken as a carpet beater and to reach spider webs and dust. There weren’t enough words to describe how uncomfortable it was to be around the woman. She’d lost everything about herself, she couldn’t remember a thing about flames or the mafia, she’d lost her fire, her edge, her intelligence, common sense and had even lost touch with the world around her.

If she hadn’t been Harmonized to Iemitsu, and if the man hadn’t felt so guilty over the entire mess, he probably would have left her to try and give her a future away from the Mafia. The idiot was the type to run away from his problems if he couldn’t solve them. Iemitsu could have broken the Harmonization at that point, the only one out of them that would have suffered the backlash would have been the man himself. Nana would have effectively been set free and both could have gone their separate ways, however…

Nana had fallen pregnant.

A Sky born to a Sealed Mist Guardian and her estranged Sky. A miracle born out of tragedy and now that little miracle was going to be cut down before he could fully fledge because his father was a complete moron. The kind of moron that bragged about his son’s potential, the kind of retarded idiot who crowed from the rooftops that his son had manifested as a Sky and then proceeded to draw the kind of attention that only a Sky could, the kind of attention that had EVERYONE looking. Two years’ worth of work spent looking, (and finding!), a passable body double wasted and a rare and precious baby was going to have to pay the ultimate price for it.

She couldn’t help it.

Lal launched herself off of her perch on the kitchen table and planted her feet into the moron’s face just for the principal of it. Iemitsu was organizing the search from his house, with his oblivious Mist keeping herself out of it by cooking up a storm in the kitchen, lost in the throes of being so close to her Sky and completely unaware that her son was even missing. Kicking the man in the face was the least she could do to wear off the burning edge of irritation crawling up her spine, that and he made a pretty good target. 

She couldn’t stand being in the house much more than she could stand her own thought-process anymore. 

Punting the useless excuse of a Sky aside she made for the door and ignored the groan of pain coming from the man. She had to ignore it or she’d be tempted to turn around and give him something REAL to complain about and she didn’t have the TIME to kick some brains past the idiot’s damnably thick skull and into his empty cranium. She was going to save that thought for another time though, when she had the time to savour it and plan Every. Little. Bit. Of. It.

Right now? She was going to go out and make herself useful, maybe even try to sense for the kid. The boy had manifested as a Sky and a situation like this would hopefully be enough to push against the seal Timoteo had placed on the boy. It was a long-shot that dependant on a lot of luck as well as the boy’s will to live… but it was about the only way she figured she could stand to pass the time until she either got word the boy had been found or she found the boy herself.

They hadn’t made it to Namimori in time to catch Tsuna as he left school for home, even with the boy staying back late to help close up the library. They’d arrived just an hour too late as the janitor had spotted the boy leaving as he’d been closing the gate. Asking around the neighbourhood revealed that the kid never took the same route home two days in a row and liked to explore. In abstract that made for a good habit for a future Mafioso to get into but right now it was more than a little frustrating when trying to track down the boy’s last whereabouts.

Her levels of irritation were hitting critical pressure.

School had ended for the day, children were everywhere and questioning them was an exercise in futility. By all accounts the young Sky actively avoided contact with his peers, was either incredibly shy, confrontational or invisible depending on who you asked. Getting clear feedback out of one of the boy’s classmates was currently driving her up the wall. Grinding her teeth against the urge to kick the kid she was cross-examining she resisted and wished she hadn’t jumped down from the rooftops when she’d felt a Flame-Active child in the vicinity. 

This one was testing her ability to keep a cool head.

Questions were met with questions and trying to get a straight answer out of him was making her wish she really COULD kick the kid. Wide and innocent puppy-like hazel brown eyes, spiked black hair and a easy going grin on the face of the young Rain she’d come across was a far cry from the blond Sky she was looking for. If she’d been hoping she’d find Tsunayoshi right away she’d been sorely disappointed.

“Have you or have you NOT seen Sawada Tsunayoshi.” She repeated, a hairs breath away from kicking the kid anyway, protocol or no protocol. She wasn’t allowed to kick him, this was just a kid, a classic rain for god’s sake! Even if she kicked him it wouldn’t get her the answers she was looking for.

Damn it, if anyone would have any sort of idea where the kid was then surely a local Flame-Active would have seen or noticed something. A Sky drew attention at all times, seal or no seal, and a Flame-Active as young as this one would have been helpless against that kind of pull. He should have noticed something, anything that would give them a clue as to the whereabouts or fate of the boy everyone was looking for.

Hazel eyes stared down at her with a clear question mark and the kid’s head tilted to the side, it was an expression she was fast learning to hate. “Sawada? Are you looking for his house? He doesn’t live this way, he lives down that way.” The kid pointed out in the direction she’d clearly come from. “Are you lost? Do you want me to show you the way?”

“I am not lost! I’m looking for Sawada Tsunayoshi! Do. You. Know. Where. He. Is.”

“Oh? Are you playing Hide and Seek? I love that game! Can I play?” The boy asked brightly, a gormless grin washing away the earnest helpfulness he’d been sporting before.

She almost couldn’t believe it. Here she was, a TRAINED INTERROGATOR and she was having trouble getting one straight answer out of a seven year old. Lal would have been impressed with this kid’s ability to lead people into circular conversations had this been any other time, under any other circumstance and if she believed for even a second that this kid was actually doing it on purpose instead of being just that stupid. 

“No! I am not playing a game, no you can’t play! I just want to find out where Sawada Tsunayoshi is! Have you seen him at all today?” She asked through gritted teeth. Was this a Guardian’s instincts rising to the surface to protect the local Unattached Sky? She wished she could believe it. It would have made it easier to ignore the rising NEED to kick the kid across the street.

“You don’t have to be so mean, I just wanted to play too.” The boy pouted, a kicked puppy look replacing the gormless grin on his face.

Lal felt her patience snap with an almost audible twang, the only thing that saved the dark haired seven year old from a well-deserved boot was the body that ran around the corner and tripped over the both of them. Everyone fell into the street, the wet puddle-streaked street, and ended up in a glorious tangle.

“Sorry!” the body shouted before scrambling up and haring off as a second figure, larger, older, and with a very familiar object in hand, rounded the corner in hot pursuit.

The boy who had run into them was battered, one cheek darkened with a fresh bruise with blood drying around the edge of his mouth, his hair wet with the rain and dirty from the mud he’d fallen into, he was missing his shoes and one of his socks but… this was the boy she was looking for. 

“LEAVE HIM ALONE!” The young rain who fallen with her yelled out, scrabbling at a pocket and hurling the baseball he’d found there at the man’s head, the shot missed but she could appreciate the sentiment.

“Get inside!” She barked, finally giving the boy the kick he’d earned earlier and sent him barrelling into a nearby store. “Don’t follow!” 

“DAD! CALL THE POLICE! THERE’S A GUY WITH A GUN!”

Oh goddamn it, she wished she’d kicked the boy UNCONSIOUS! Now they were going to have to operate around the police! Unslinging her own gun from where she had it strapped across her back under her cloak she chased after the soon-to-be-dead hit-man. 

He would reach Sawada Tsunayoshi over her dead body.

OoO

Tsuna didn’t need to turn around to realize that someone else had joined in on the wild goose-chase he was leading his would-be killer and kidnapper on, he felt it. Whoever had joined in on the pursuit also felt heads and away more dangerous than the man he was currently leading around by the nose. Which was just brilliant, the cherry on the top of proverbial cake.

It hadn’t taken him very long to realize exactly which part of Namimori the man had decided to squirrel him away in. Hell the location wasn’t even that far from his own house, which had probably helped with the planning that had gone into this stunt, as little of it as there seemed to have been. He could have easily lost his pursuer within minutes, it wouldn’t even have been all that hard, but that would have given the man the opportunity to get into his car and meet him on the way before he made it home. Not only that but the man might have even have been brave enough, or stupid enough, to confront his mother.

His only other option was to lead the man around by his nose until they drew enough attention. Until the man got flustered and angry enough to forget exactly where they were and where Tsuna was leading them to, forget that he was supposed to be concealing that gun and be avoiding attention. 

Tsuna was going to lead the man directly into police custody.

He’d already sacrificed a sock to the cause, almost losing the man despite making as much noise getting away as he possibly could. Both to draw the kidnapper’s attention and to get bystanders to notice exactly what was going on. He’d had to drop his sock in a clearly visible area and then kick a can across the street to get the man to spot him again.

“FUCKING BRAT!” the man screamed as he rounded the corner, close to frothing at the mouth and swinging the gun he was openly baring directly down at him.

He ducked into another alleyway. Good, the man looked like he’d completely forgotten where he was and had actually lost his temper enough that he’d finally pulled the gun out in broad daylight for everyone to see. Now would be about the perfect time to lead the man to the police station they’d half circled around, especially since Tsuna was starting to run out of the strength to keep running.

The crystal clarity he’d been seeing the world in was fading fast and the hot, emotional effects of his flames, the effects that he’d been seeking earlier, were starting to creep back into his system. Fumbling for the silver flask in his pocket Tsuna scrabbled at the lid, opened it and choked down the precious little liquid he had left in the flask, hoping the boost of strength would be enough to get him to the police station without blacking out. 

His goal was just around the corner and Tsuna had been ducking around them practically since the very start of the chase. It wouldn’t be too far of a stretch to guess which direction he was going to take, but just in case… Shoving his now-empty flask back into his pocket Tsuna kicked his last sock off. Might as well, he wasn’t about to give the man any credit for non-existent brain cells. Throw him one last bit of bait in order to get him exactly where he wanted him.

Which was right into the path of a descending Tonfa.

Tsuna allowed himself skid to his knees as he slipped past the police detective that had stepped directly behind him as he slid past and turned to watch as the man dealt with his kidnapper in two precise blows. One knocked the gun out of the man’s hand and the other rammed down into his pursuer’s temple, it was all done so smoothly Tsuna would have thought the movement had been rehearsed had he not seen the shock that had flashed across the downed man’s face as the gun flew out of his hand.

The gun itself landed with a clatter at his feet and Tsuna absently reached for it, it was too dangerous to just leave it lying there, but the police detective stopped him with a gentle hand.

“Shh, it’s alright now.” The detective said, voice as gentle as the hands that were now cautiously moving to pick him up. “Well done in making it this far on your own, but it’s safe now. You’re safe.”

Tsuna was easily pulled up and settled in the man’s arms in the same smooth movement it took for the detective to sweep the gun away to another police officer with his foot. The man casually carried him away from the sudden swarming of uniforms dogpiling his now-unconscious kidnapper and handed off the Tonfa he had used to drop the man onto another passing officer. 

Looking past the hapless criminal Tsuna didn’t take his eyes off the shadows of the alleyway he’d just left and continued to stare until he was carried in through the doors of the police station. His second pursuer, the one he had picked up after tripping over the two kids earlier, had stayed in the alleyway. He opened his mouth to tell the police officer but thought better of it. He hadn’t seen the second pursuer and if questioned the man the police officers were now carting off into custody could very well claim to have been working alone. The only proof he’d had that he even had a second pursuer wasn’t so much as proof as it had been his gut feeling, the police might even think he’d imagined it.

Safe. Yeah, he was. For now.

He had done everything he could have done in getting away, whatever happened after this… he could be sure he couldn’t have done anything differently. If this hadn’t been enough then he was going to have to get creative the next time someone came after him. The only other option he’d had was outright killing his kidnapper and that was a step he wasn’t willing to take. Not yet. Possibly not ever.

Slumping onto the detective’s shoulder Tsuna let his eyes shutter closed and slowly let the hold he had on the lid sitting over his flames slip and was unconscious before he even fully let go.

OoO 

Sawada Iemitsu couldn’t help but think he deserved every bruise Lal dished out on her return to the house. After the mad scramble that had taken place trying to beat the ambulance to the precinct, pulling together an illusion to make everyone think they were just another team of medics there on-call, trying to keep Tsuna alive on the way to the hospital and… he couldn’t bring himself to go back into his son’s room.

He dragged himself away from the door, past the sharp eyed glare of the Detective who had planted himself just outside his son’s room, and outside into the parking lot where he climbed into the van they all piled into to get Tsuna to the hospital and let himself slump into the passengers seat. 

He didn’t deserve to be a father.

Lal twisted his ear from where she was sitting on his shoulder, having had to be in close contact with him to keep his disguise as a doctor up, and pulled back her illusion. “You don’t have the time to be sitting here moping, go out there and start acting your part! You got word from Nana and took the taxi here, lucky you were in Tokyo. Go!” She barked, bodily kicking him out of the van and back into the parking lot. 

Iemitsu caught his ‘luggage’ with the back of his head. He may have been able to catch or dodge it had he not been so flame-depleted, it had taken almost the entirety of his reserves to keep Tsuna alive long enough to get him to the hospital and then to supply an emergency transfer. He’d had to stay and work with the CEDEF medics for the entirety of the operation, Tsuna had rejected every Sun Flame introduced into his system so violently they had been afraid of trying again after two people. In the end it had taken Iemitsu shifting his own Sky Flame into a Sun Resonance and then working under the direction of the Medics in order keep him alive.

He was stable for now, after god-knew how many hours of heart-stopping fear and panic. Hours of scrambling to not only provide the flames his son needed but to keep it steady, keep it in the Sun Resonation, (he had never been so thankful for the Sky ability to mimic other flames), and focus it onto his son’s barely-breathing body. 

The sheer amount of damage they’d had to fix, none of which had been caused by the hit-man, had been borderline unbelievable. Or rather, it would have been unbelievable had he not known what would do that to a body so completely unprepared for the kind of flame his son had called upon. Tsuna had not only activated his flames, he had felt threatened enough to push past the seal Nono had placed over them and had pulled his Hyper Intuition up at the same time. Lal had seen the orange in the boy’s eyes when he’d tripped over her but she had assumed he’d been in the first stages of his Dying Will. 

This was bad, at seven years old there was no way Tsuna was ready to handle the flames he was drawing on. Unearthing his Hyper Intuition from underneath the seal meant that he must have been a breath away from entering Hyper Dying Will Mode, probably HAD done for a brief moment. It was a minor miracle Tsuna hadn’t killed himself outright by doing so, the shock of introducing a flame of that kind of purity and strength into a system that had been sealed for two years… this had been a very close call.

Dragging himself up off the ground Iemitsu picked up the duffle-bag Lal had punted at his head and knew that if he’d had the strength for it he’d have burned through the handle. This could not be allowed to happen again, Tsuna might not be so lucky next time. They needed to get word out, put up smoke-screens, make an example of the hit man who had gone after his son and lay down false information. Damage control, they needed to do a lot of it. Soon. Opening his mouth to say something to that effect Iemitsu caught a cell-phone with his face.

“… and call your wife! She needs to know where her son is and I’m not doing it!” 

Slouching, he peeled the phone off his face and bit his tongue against the complaint that wanted to escape. He’d almost lost his son, couldn’t she be nicer to him for once?

Lal’s eyes glinted from where she was watching him from the seat he’d just ‘vacated’ and knew instantly that she’d seen the look on his face. “What?” she asked, jumping up to balance on the edge of the open window between them. “You think I’m going to send you on with a pat on your back? Whose idiot fault do you think this is? Don’t worry though, when we get back I’ll make sure we review the standard protocols. The ones you ignored and nearly got your son killed.”

He was a grown man. He shouldn’t feel this intimidated.

Lal’s feet speared into his gut. “But since you can’t walk into a hospital on your own I’ll be more than happy to guide you back in. March.”

Wheezing Iemitsu didn’t bother protesting, he’d been stalling. He knew it, Lal had seen it and he wished it hadn’t been so necessary for her to ‘escort’ him. He’d never thought he’d both be grateful he had Sky flames and regret it so much at the same time. On one hand he’d been able to save his son’s life but on the other…

His instincts as a Sky wanted to crush his budding Rival before he got any stronger.

Tsuna had only been five years old when he’d lit his flames, the undeniable strength and purity of his flame had been incredible. In the two years since then that quality had only gotten stronger and Iemitsu could only imagine what that flame would be like in ten years or in just five. When he started to hit his maturity as a Sky he’d start drawing Guardians and once he had the full set, a Full Harmony, those flames would only get stronger. 

He didn’t even want to know what his reaction would have been if Nono hadn’t sealed Tsuna’s flames. If he hadn’t been there in that moment his son had fallen out of that tree, if he’d been alone when he’d been confronted with those flames, coming from such a young and fragile Sky with no Guardians to shield him…

The Ninth had been able to raise his children, all FOUR of them having manifested with Sky Flames, without feeling threatened by them. The man's Guardians protected him from that kind of instinct, it was one of the side-benefits of achieving a Full Harmony. This was what he got for allowing his depression to rule over his need to gather the full set of Guardians.

Iemitsu had three options.

He could wait until Tsuna had gathered his own Guardians and his flame registered how bad an idea it would be to try and tangle with that. He could try and complete his own ‘set’ of Guardians and hope their influence stabilized his instincts and finally… he could continue keeping his distance. 

Or he could just do all of the above.

His heart clenched at the idea that he’d have to open himself up to another Guardian, especially after what had happened to Nana, and it felt like an open wound tearing across his soul but if he failed to do it…

Iemitsu let his feet lead him back into the hospital and absently gave his name to the receptionist, only barely hearing her and pretended to listen as she gave him directions to his son’s room. The detective who had planted himself outside Tsuna’s room followed him inside and waited as he stared down at his son’s unconscious form, eyes tracing the dark, now purple-black, bruise that decorated his cheek and the surface wounds they’d had to leave alone to keep up appearances.

Depending on who you asked in the Mafia world there was always a different name for it. Some call it Sky Rejection, others called it Rivalry or Intimidation, some Famiglias called it Overcast or Sundering. No matter what you called it was the same thing. It was when a Sky turned hostile to another Sky for what seemed to be no other reason than pure animal instinct. He was lucky, SO lucky the Ninth had been there to seal Tsuna’s flame. If his own father reacted like that to his flame, felt threatened enough to even consider... than he didn’t even want to imagine what another, unrelated Sky would have done.

The best case scenario was that Tsuna would have found himself with another Sky wanting to play parent with him, the worst was Sky Rivalry and subsequent squashing of said Rival.

He was not going to fall prey to it. This was the same little baby he’d held in his arms, the same little miracle that had once loved to sit sweetly in his arms, the bright and warm presence that had once been a joy to be around. He was not going to let his god-damned instincts ruin that. 

If that meant he was going to have to have Lal ‘supervise’ him, open himself up to another Guardian or whatever… he’d do it.

This was his SON.

He started at the sound of a throat clearing and turned to the Detective, eyeing the badge the man flashed at him briefly. 

“Sawada Iemitsu? If you don’t mind I’d like to ask you a few questions…”

OoO

Hibari Minoru couldn’t have been more disgusted with Sawada Tsunayoshi’s parents if they’d arrived at the hospital covered in manure. They’d arrived separately, the father first and then the mother.

Sawada Iemitsu came dressed in an overall that was too clean and too new to support the claim that the man worked for an oil company. Supposing the man DID work for an oil company why would he still be wearing his work uniform and why would it still be that pristine? Why would he be wearing said uniform if he’d been at a Tokyo office? Shouldn’t he have been wearing a suit instead? A glance at the man’s luggage showed the duffle bag may- well have been bought brand-new as well.

That wasn’t what disgusted him though. What disgusted him was in how the man had looked in on his son, given him a quick once-over and had retreated into the hallway to answer his questions. What kind of father didn’t even reach forward to touch his son? Also he hadn’t liked the look on the man’s face as he’d been looking down at the boy. That had not been the expression a loving father should be sporting upon witnessing his son lying injured in a hospital bed.

Inquiries revealed that the man hadn’t been home in over two years and had only just been recently, and apparently very temporarily, been transferred to the Tokyo office. He didn’t have any enemies that he knew of and had been the one to call in the Missing Person’s report when his son failed to come home from school. Which begged the question, how had the man known his son was late if he hadn’t been home in two years? How had he known that his son hadn’t just gone over to a friend’s place? What made him think he was missing? Also why wasn’t the man plastered to his kid’s side? Just the very fact he hadn’t seen his child for two years should have been enough to warrant wanting to glue himself to the bedside, if not crawl in next to him, but to be unmoved with his son so injured?

The boy had been attacked by a gun-toting nutcase and he didn’t even care to stick around. The man had all but vanished after answering his questions, not even bothering to stay long enough for the boy’s mother to show up. 

Speaking of the mother, where was she right now? She’d gone home too. Showing up hours after her husband had left and her reason for showing up late had been because she’d been ‘packing everything away’. Further questioning into that statement revealed that she hadn’t meant joining her husband in Tokyo like he’d assumed, but had been talking of the feast she had apparently cooked up in celebration for her husband’s return.

Iemitsu had ‘put her heart at ease’ as far as the kidnapping went, ‘explained’ the situation to her and had ‘calmed her down’. Minoru didn’t know what the hell that meant but shining a light in her eyes when he ‘fumbled’ his penlight showed that her pupils reacted normally. She sounded about as high as a kite but nothing in the blood test he’d had a nurse administer as a ‘routine test’ showed anything suspicious. No drugs in her system, the only alcohol they found was well below the legal limit, most probably consumed while making the feast the woman thought was more important to save from spoiling than rushing to see her hospitalized son.

No real parent would dream of letting their child wake up alone after an experience like the one Sawada Tsunayoshi had gone through and yet the boy’s father was on his way back to Tokyo. His mother, after cooing over his sleeping form and fussing a bit with his blankets, remarked that it was getting late and then left. To go back home.

He hadn’t even thought twice about contacting Child Protective Services. He’d never been on a case that had him reaching for his phone to call them quite this early in the investigative stages before, but there was something clearly wrong with this family. The father had disappeared within moments of seeing his son, probably wouldn’t pop his head up out of the woodwork again without being prompted by his wife, and the woman herself… had more than a few screws loose in her head.

It had been three days since the boy had been admitted into the hospital and in that time-frame she’d only visited two times. Both times had been late in the afternoon and had only lasted long enough to pet the kid on the head, press a kiss onto the unbruised side of the boy’s face, fuss with his blankets a little more and then leave again.

He tried to imagine his sister-in-law acting like with his nephew and just couldn’t picture it, Yun would have bundled Kyouya up into her lap within half a heartbeat and cuddled him within an inch of his life. Kyouya would have squirmed and tried to escape but it wouldn’t have done him any good. A mother, a REAL mother, would fuss and smother her child with affection no matter their child’s temperament, would glue herself to her son’s side and not BUDGE until she got him home again. Minoru’s older brother Satoshi would have dropped everything to be by his son’s side and would have moved heaven and hell in order to see justice was done. Sawada Nana was completely lacking in any maternal instinct whatsoever and he didn’t even want to think about Sawada Iemitsu again.

“Fucking herbivores…” Minoru muttered under his breath, borrowing a bit of his nephew’s vocabulary for this one moment, he was stating to understand what Kyouya meant when he complained, (as much as the boy ever complained), about being surrounded by them.

He’d stayed at the hospital in Tsunayoshi’s parents stead, at the very least the boy would have ONE familiar face to wake up to, (if he remembered any of what happened to him) and had set himself up on the bed next to his. Social Services had been quick to respond and their representative Hashimoto Rin hadn’t taken very long to come to the same conclusion as he had. She was going to have to interview the boy when he woke up and then the mother but she didn’t like what she saw either.

How exactly did the mother of a Narcoleptic seven-year-old let that child walk to school and back? Alone? And then not worry herself to death when he didn’t come home? The fact it had been the boy’s father to call in the Missing Person’s report had the social worker frowning as well.

A full examination of Sawada Tsunayoshi revealed a large and sprawling array of bumps, scrapes and bruises. Some of which had to have been caused by the kidnapper but others, far too many to be comfortable with, were too old to have been caused by the gunman and had already faded to yellow and were well on their way to healing. The kid was thin too, not overly so, but certainly under the average weight he should be given his age. 

Whatever the case was he would, hopefully, be getting his answers soon.

Sawada Tsunayoshi was waking up.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guh. This chapter was a freaking emotional DRAIN but i liked how it turned out. I had an interesting time writing it but Ima gonna go crawl into bed and face-plant now. I'd write something in the notes here but all my energy just went into this chapter so when I try to think of something to add all I'm thinking is 'Buh' so I'll just let you guys have this chapter as it is.
> 
> Have fun reading it, i had fun writing it.
> 
> Warnings for some seriously cute fluff in the middle-ish part (I think? Close to the end?) of the chapter, you may need to punch a wall to feel human again. You have been warned. Also go read this fic's twin, it's called Brightly Burning by Araceil on fanfiction.net

When Tsuna groggily peeled his eyes open and the fact that he was currently in a hospital bed registered the relief hit almost like a physical sensation. There was an underlining thread of fear and helplessness to it as well because he felt weak, weaker than he'd ever been. Was this a side-effect of using his flames for such an extended period of time? Or was it that he'd downed his special flame-infused tea on top of flipping the seal on his flames? Had the stress of the whole situation that been too much for his body to handle?

Mostly though he felt a need for his questions answered. He wanted to know what had happened to the hitman. He wanted to know what the police were going to do about the man, would they release him? Would the man be going to jail? Had the police figured out who he was and who he worked for? He wanted to leap out of bed and head for the nearest library and look up the names CEDEF and Vongola, maybe even scour the internet. Something that would give him a clue as to what was going on.

He wanted to go back to the place he'd been taken to and tear it apart for answers, the papers alone would be worth looking into and right now he'd give anything to get his hands on them, they'd probably unearth a wealth of information… The phone. Had the man had left his phone in the building? He'd set it on the window sill before picking up his gun, he'd picked it up again after threatening him but would he have laid it down again to chase after him?

Trying to sit up was a mistake, he knew it the second he tried it, his head swam in dizzying circles at the movement and slumping back against the pillows was all he could do to fight the sensation. Dragging a hand up over his eyes he pressed his wrist over them and rode it out, opening them only when he felt the world steady enough to get a look at the plastic identification bracelet looped around his wrist. Sawada Tsunayoshi.

A slow look around as he propped himself up on his elbows revealed he was in a hospital. Namimori Children's Hospital. He recognized the paediatrics ward from the time the doctors had been trying to figure out a cause for his black-outs and migraines. The doctors HERE had figured out his name where the ones at Namimori General Hospital's Emergency department hadn't, or was that because he'd been seen here before? Had one of the doctors recognized him?

Curling into his pillows he let his eyes shutter close for a long moment and just let that fact that he was alive sink into his being. He was alive. He was in a hospital, (he'd half been expecting that), and he hadn't had to kill his would-killer/kidnapper. His head was aching, his throat was itchy and dry and his mouth tasted like he hadn't brushed his teeth in days, that last one probably meant that he'd been sleeping for longer than the day it usually took for him to recover from flipping the lid off his flames.

If he had to guess.. then he'd been asleep for a lot longer than just the one day then, he'd pulled at his flames harder than he'd ever had to before, however long it had taken for him to wake up he'd thoroughly earned and deserved it. He felt oddly warm though, for waking up after a forced 'nap', it was almost as if he'd drunk a whole flask of his special tea… speaking of tea his throat itched. Coughing weakly he slid his eyes open again and tried to sit himself up now that he had a reason to try, (maybe he could reach the bedside table and the jug of water there), and startled badly when an arm reached out to help him.

"Hey, it's alright! You're safe! Shhh… Here, drink this, you must be thirsty after sleeping for so long." The man who was helping him sit up said, pressing a plastic cup of water to his lips.

What? Who was this and what were they doing in his hospital room- no, he remembered who this was. Short black hair, sharp and distinctive slate-grey eyes… This was the police officer who had so handily dealt with his kidnapper, the one who had picked him up and carried him into the police station.

The man was wearing a side-arm in a holster which was tucked under his left arm, a police badge was hooked into his belt and he was dressed down from the suit he'd been wearing, having discarded the jacket and tie and had loosened the top few buttons of his shirt. A quick look over to the bed next to his as he drank down the water and Tsuna was able to locate the missing jacket and tie, tossed carelessly onto a side table, and the bed itself was covered in files and loose papers.

Exactly how long had the man been waiting for him to wake up?

"There you go, drink the rest of that while I go call the doctor, I'll be right back okay?" The police officer said as he carefully let go of the cup he was helping him hold. Tsuna's drained it and let his hands fall back into his lap, he was tired. There was no way this wasn't a side-effect of flipping his flames into overdrive.

Not only was he tired but he also hurt, ached in ways he didn't think were possible and that ache went right down to his bones. The skin around his mouth stung too, (chemical burn?) and when he lifted his hands to check he noted the bandages wrapped around them and discovered his palms felt a little raw under the wrappings. That had to have been from clenching the rope too hard and then catching himself with his hands against the pavement when he'd tripped over those kids in the alleyway.

Tsuna's head dipped from the effort of keeping himself upright and it was only fast reaction the police officer from earlier, darting back into the room to catch him, that saved him from either falling forward over himself or falling out of bed altogether. "Easy there, we've got you." The detective said as he gently eased him back so he was lying back against the pillows, stepping back to allow doctor and nurse who'd followed the chance to examine him.

The bed was adjusted so that the he could sit up without having to support himself and the doctor looked him over. The detective stayed back while this was happening, standing near the door where he signalled to someone outside the room and a woman with straight black hair pulled up in a high ponytail ducked into the room with a relieved smile on her face. Tsuna watched the two out of the corner of his eye and wished their quiet conversation was loud enough for him to eaves drop on. The doctor was giving him careful instructions, asking him questions and keeping his attention split between him, the nurse next to him, the detective and the woman with the dark hair.

Did this hurt? Yes. Did that hurt? Yes. Do you know where you are? Hospital. Do you know what your name is? Tsuna didn't bother trying to lying about that one, they already knew who he was. They were just testing if HE knew who he was, which made sense given the blow he'd taken to the head. Sawada Tsunayoshi.

"Do you remember what happened to you?"

Tsuna looked away from the doctor to the detective and very carefully didn't bite his lip. He remembered absolutely everything… but if he revealed that and answered the follow-up questions then the police would get to the old office building the hitman had used as a base before he did. They'd take it all away before he could even look at it while he was still stuck in the hospital and who knew what was in those notes the man had scattered all over the place?

Avoiding the detective's sharp gaze was as easy as dropping his own to his lap. "I… the man… he said he was lost, that he wanted to find the library. He had a map and asked me if I could show him where it was." He said, clenching the blankets that covered his lap as he remembered how easy it had been for the man to lure him within reaching range. Lesson learned now though, he wasn't going to be making that mistake ever again.

"He put a wet cloth over my face, it smelled like… sweet medicine." He continued, lifting a hand to the healing burn around his mouth and nose, touched at it lightly and dropping his heavy hand back onto the bedspread.

"Chloroform." The detective muttered seemingly to himself as he pulled a notebook out of a pocket to scribble down notes.

"I… don't really remember much of what happened next." Tsuna lied carefully, keeping his eyes firmly on his hands. "When I woke up he was on the phone, I think he was speaking in English. He asked me something but… I didn't understand. He asked me what my name was and called me a liar when I told him. He hit me." Tsuna didn't bother reaching up to his throbbing cheek. It was obvious where the man had hit him, it probably made for quite the impressive bruise right now.

"He went back to his phone so I tried to get away, I ran as fast as I could and then at the police station you…"

"Took care of the rest." The man finished for him, Tsuna saw the detective frown out of the corner of his eye and stiffened, hands clenching tighter on the blankets he was holding. The frown softened and the man's tone of voice gentled. "… was there anything else you'd like to add? Anything?"

 _'I must ask you, Harry, if there's anything you'd like to tell me. Anything at all.'_ Tsuna closed his eyes against the aged voice and breathed slowly around the sparking beginnings of a migraine, carefully calming himself down with ease of practice.

"No." Tsuna murmured carefully, echoing the reply his dream-self would have given to that kind of question. "There isn't anything…" he trailed off biting his tongue on the 'Professor' that wanted to trip out of his mouth, catching himself before he could switch languages. His knowledge of English was something that had saved his life, he wasn't about to let that slip, not even in front of a cop. Who knew how far that information would travel? The best way to keep that information from spreading was to keep it to himself. A secret was only _kept_ a secret if one person alone knew it.

He was never going to take his safety for granted again, he almost wanted to thank the hitman for opening his eyes, how stupid had he been to limit his caution to kids around his age or older? He should have known better, hadn't his dreams shown him how dangerous the world could get? Adults. Teenagers. He'd been walking around with his guard halfway down, now that he'd been shown just how wrong he'd been in doing so… he wasn't about to drop his guard down again.

Not for anyone.

"Tsu-kun! You're awake!" a delighted voice sounded from the doorway.

Relief swamped him, his mother! At least here was someone he didn't have to hold his guard up against! She was here and looking the same as she always did and smiling! She was safe! Melting into the embrace she swept him up into Tsuna pressed his face against her shoulder and just let himself relax, letting the tension he hadn't known he was carrying rapidly leech out of his system. His plan had worked! She was safe and judging by how she was acting she didn't even have a clue what had happened. Whoever had been on the other end of the Hitman's phone call must have actually believed the lie he'd spun and had decided not to go after her, thank god for idiots and hair dye!

"Oh Tsuna, look at the mess you've made of yourself!" his mother scolded lightly, smoothing a hand through his hair and tilting his head to get a good look at the bruise on his face. "You really outdid yourself this time didn't you?"

Tsuna giggled, he really couldn't help it. Yeah, he really HAD outdone himself. This was everything he'd hoped for when he'd hatched that plan. The two of them were safe, he'd gotten whoever had hired the hitman thinking he was a body double, he hadn't had to kill anyone AND he'd been taught a valuable lesson at the same time. If or when someone came for him again he was going to be ready.

"Sorry mama." He apologized around a grin, hiding the expression by burying his face into her cardigan. "I'll be more careful next time."

OoO

Minoru snapped his pen in half without realizing it.

In the worry that the suspect they had in custody hadn't been working alone he'd taken up guard duty and had only really left to use the bathroom, change into the spare clothes he kept in his office drawer, (he'd asked one of the uniforms to fetch it for him), and to speak with the doctors and the social worker. As such he knew exactly how much damage Tsunayoshi had done to himself and could estimate the kind of fear and stress the boy had to have been feeling to run himself quite so ragged, especially given his underlying health issues.

Sawada Tsunayoshi had run his feet to shreds, had fought against his kidnapper with his bare hands at one point, (the scratches on the suspect's hands and the matching DNA they'd found under the boy's fingernails were enough proof of that). He'd been tied with those same hands behind his back, (bruises and rope-burns across palms and wrists), he had even successfully managed to slip out of those restraints and gotten away with his life intact! It was a minor miracle he was alive all all, never mind the fact that he'd done so while fighting the side-effects of Chloroform to boot!

Sawada Nana should have been the one reassuring her son, not the other way around! The woman shouldn't be scolding him, she should be praising him to high-heaven! Also what the hell kind of interaction had that been? Just which of the two of them was the adult in that relationship and which of them was currently in a hospital bed?

Dropping the broken ends of his pen into the waste paper basket and his notebook on the bedside table he shared a look with the Social Worker and very slowly cleaned the ink off his hands with a handkerchief fished out of a pocket. What they had right now was mostly circumstantial and they currently didn't have a lick of evidence that would prove neglect, at least not directly. He knew how Social Services worked, if they didn't have that proof, strong enough evidence to support removing Sawada Tsunayoshi from his mother's care, then they really couldn't do much. They would observe the situation, put a flag on his profile and check back every now and again, keep a very close eye on his education and medical records.

He knew something was wrong here but not being able to do anything about the situation was going to drive him to insanity and back, he just knew it. Legally his hands were tied, he'd already done all he could have done by calling Social Services in the first place. As much as he wished he could remove the boy from his family situation and give him a real home he was just going to have to wait for that evidence to show itself. It would, he had no doubt it would, with the mother being this much of a space-case it was only a matter of time until they had enough to remove Tsunayoshi from her 'care', but…

The problem was the very fact they had to wait, wait until they HAD that evidence, leave the poor kid in a situation he didn't deserve just to satisfy the law. It was times like this that Minoru wished he could just ignore the letter of the law and go with the spirit of it instead, even if the kid was apparently more than happy with the situation as it was regardless.

It made his heart clench, to think that this kind of behaviour from his own mother was so completely normal to Tsunayoshi that he didn't even bat an eyelash at the scolding, was so affection-starved he melted into his mother's arms the second she arrived and clung to her cardigan even as the woman got up to leave. The grip he had on his handkerchief tightened, threatening to rip the fabric of it as the kid reluctantly let his mother go and didn't even question it when the woman mentioned she had to go home again, merely nodded and accepted it. Accepted that small scrap of affection tossed his way like it was all he was going to get.

There had to be some kind of mental damage going on there, on the mother's side. He'd pulled up her records along with her husband's when he'd been digging into their backgrounds and could almost picture when that damage had happened. Sawada Nana's criminal history been the kind of laundry-list of offenses one would expect out of a teenager in the middle of a downward spiral. The last incident of which had been a large-scale fight that had landed her, and a fair-few others including her new husband, in hospital for quite a while.

Records indicated that charges had been dropped and he could see why.

A large-scale fight that landed the woman in hospital, her criminal activity just stopping, Reports describing the then seventeen-year-old as a fiery and explosive young woman who'd had everyone around her walking on eggshells… Comparing the reports to the woman as she was today and all he could conclude was brain-damage, a brain-damaged woman had no business trying to raise a child, let alone try to do so alone.

Tossing his handkerchief into the trash Minoru searched around for a tissue or napkin, he was pretty sure he had a few from the convenience-bought lunch one of the officers on the case had dropped off for him, and blinked in surprise when a packet of wet-wipes was held out to him.

"Calm down, it's not going to do you or him any good to get yourself worked up. This is just the first step, we've got a long way to go if we're going to be able to help him." the social worker murmured, opening the packet for him and tugging a napkin free before offering it back. "I know how you feel, trust that I wouldn't be in this job if I feel the same way, but we can't rush things. At the moment we've only just scratched at the surface, who knows what we're going to find underneath? First impressions aren't always what they seem." The woman remarked as she set the open packet of wipes down on the bed he'd spread his files out over.

"How are you doing it? Staying so calm." Minoru asked, cleaning the ink from his fingers. "Every time I look at him I can't help picturing my nephew and I can't even…" he cut himself off before he could start swearing and studiously scrubbed at a spot on his thumb when the boy they were talking about looked around the doctor currently examining him to peer at them with innocently curious brown eyes.

"Cats."

Minoru looked up at that, wondering how that answered his question.

Hashimoto Rin smiled, wiggled her fingers a bit in the direction of the little boy that was watching them and then casually tapped her pen against the open file in front of her. "When I first walk into a case I picture the families involved as cats and kittens. It might sound silly but it's how I cope with it, it's also a reminder and a check in how I behave."

"How?" Minoru asked incredulously, feeling an eyebrow hike up in disbelief.

"I think to myself, 'How would a stray kitten react if I tried to just reach out and grab him?', I might be trying to save him but HE doesn't know that, all he would know is that someone was trying to take him away from his mother. Look at how high his guard is up, he's about one surprise away from hissing and spitting." She remarked idly, nodding minutely at the boy who was pretending not to pay them any attention but was constantly watching them out of the corner of his eyes. Eyes that had seemed so innocent before she'd pointed it out now seemed sharper than they had earlier.

"How did I not notice that?" Minoru's wondered, eyes widening despite himself.

"He's small, injured, and you have a massive bleeding heart?" she delivered immediately with a straight face. "It's not a bad thing." She clarified, coughing to hide a laugh at the consternation that crossed his face. "You're not the only one in the room with the same condition. A mental picture like this lets you see the details you'd normally miss in a case and puts things in a new perspective. It's almost like taking a step back to view the entire picture without actually taking that step."

"So the mother…"

"Another stray, one that got injured as a young cat and left with a kitten to raise without the proper treatment. I'm sure you've already seen the reports by now."

Minoru agreed with at that. "The father?" he asked curiously, wondering how she was going to spin it.

"Tom cat."

He snorted at that reply, should have guessed. "… so you're saying they can't help who they are?"

"To some extent, but you know…"

"Hmm?"

The social worker looked up from the file she was reading through and cut a dry look up at him, dark eyes hardening from the soft expression she was wearing. "…spaying and neutering should be more a common practice than it actually is."

OoO

Tsuna spent most of the time in between examinations and interviews, both with the police detective and the social worker, sleeping and feigning sleep. He was curious enough, and bored enough with faking sleep, that he'd started to investigate the only thing he could from his hospital bed, which was the strange warmth running through his system AROUND the seal.

It hadn't taken very long for someone to mention his father and the fact that the man had visited him in hospital, nice to know that the man still had some sort of affection for him regardless of time spent actively avoiding him, (cause honestly what other conclusion could he draw from that?). His father used to go on business trips but they'd never lasted longer than a week or two in duration, not before his 'accident' at least.

By now, already three days after waking up in the hospital, Tsuna should have been back to feeling like he'd been dipped in ice. Instead he was still warm, not AS warm as he'd been waking up but it made a very big difference. The seal was still sitting snugly over his flames and nothing was leaking past it, but… he had flames running through his system, enough that he was still keeping his wits sharp enough to dodge Detective Hibari's pointed and leading questions.

Connecting the dots to the atypical warmth he had woken up to with his father's sudden and temporary visit wasn't exactly a stretch. He'd noticed years ago that his father had been one of the few rare individuals who had felt warm to the touch, noticeably warm. Like his grandfather, like how Tsuna himself had once been. The two men had to have the same ability to create flames as he did, his grandfather had shown his and his dad was either the same or at least an offshoot of the same ability, the warm he'd woken up to… had his father lent him some of his own magic? To make up for what he'd used trying to escape from the hitman?

Sinking his awareness into himself Tsuna spent hours just feeling the flames run around his system. The flames were different from his own and they burned brighter than the seal, a bright orange-gold compared to the burnt and faded flames. Tsuna's own flames were a deep amber and sparkled rather than glittered like the other two so it wasn't exactly hard to tell the difference.

The foreign flames were also healing him.

The glitter in the flames, rounded and flaring spheres, travelled around Tsuna's body. They found an injury, pushed in and lost their shape when they washed back out of the healed area. It wasn't long before he tried reaching out to touch them, there would have been no way he could have resisted the temptation. He was bored. He was trapped in a hospital bed and the flames were Right. There. Almost like they were begging to be pla… experimented with.

The first tentative touch at the flames didn't trigger a black-out. After few moments spent waffling in confusion and some more careful prodding he concluded that as THESE flames weren't his they didn't fall under the Seal's authority. He was safe to play around with them for as long as they lasted.

He spent more time than he'd have liked to admit just admiring the flames, poking and prodding them for a reaction and then grinning stupidly into his pillow when the glittering spheres popped. The fizzy sensation that rippled through him when they burst made him feel like he could hop out of bed and bounce down the hall. He made the flames swirl, pushed and pulled at them, chased the rounded spheres around his body, corralled them, directed them and then let them go to watch what they'd do. When he started to run out of the glittering orbs he sparked a few more to life, shaped them into balls of sparkling light and let them loose. All in all he had more fun than he'd had in a very long time.

As much fun as he was having with the flames Tsuna was MORE than ready for it when he was finally deemed healthy enough by the doctors to return home, they'd kept him for three days. Three agonizing days of playing twenty-stupid-questions with the doctors and the Social Worker and then dancing a verbal two-step with the strangely observant and watchful police officer who'd introduced himself as Hibari Minoru

The Detective was quite unlike any adult Tsuna had ever come across before, the man looked him directly in the eyes rather than looking _at_ him and actually listened when he talked, asking him to clarify a point or two during each 'interview'. It was almost as if the man didn't realize he was talking to a kid, it was a novel experience but… the attention was slightly unnerving after years of people talking over his head or at him instead of TO him.

If he hadn't had the excuse of being 'exhausted' he'd have had trouble ducking the man's pointed questions and expectant stares. He could see that the detective knew he was holding something back and was trying to get him to 'fess up' but it wasn't going to work, he wanted to get a look at the 'crime scene' before the police did. The only thing that kept him from letting something slip was the flames that were keeping his wits sharp, sharp enough that it was… child's-play to dodge Detective Hibari's questions.

Right now one of the nurses was helping him get ready to finally go home, after apparently spending a day short of a week in the hospital, three spent sleeping and three awake. Which was lucky because he'd been about one more test away from checking himself out of hospital regardless of the police watching his every move. He would finally be getting away from the 'Social Worker' and her weird and seemingly pointless questions, away from the detective with his all-too-sharp eyes and the doctors who stood around scratching their heads over his 'rapid' healing when they thought he wasn't paying attention.

The lack of freedom was chafing across his every nerve. He apparently had one more stop before he was allowed that freedom, when it was explained to him Tsuna didn't mind the side-trip. A police line-up, to identify the hitman that had come after him from a group of others. That was fine with him, right now he'd do anything to get out of hospital.

OoO

He wasn't allowed to walk.

Tsuna tried not to sulk from his seat in the wheelchair as he was pushed up a ramp and into Namimori's prefecture police office, he was out of the hospital, he was in his own clothes and he was about to be allowed to go home. He wasn't even allowed to get up in the lift! It wasn't like he NEEDED to sit in the chair, his feet were long-since healed and he wasn't so weak that he couldn't walk around under his own steam, but when he tried to explain that to everyone they steamrolled over his protests. He could either spend a few more days in hospital or use the chair, he wasn't exactly given much of a choice in the matter.

Hibari Minoru's office was in a large, open room divided into small workspaces. More specifically his 'office' was a desk lined up against a short cubicle wall. A filing cabinet sat behind it, three identical desks spaced further along the same 'wall' shared the same space and four desks mirrored them on the other side. There were several rooms, (Actual offices? Was that one a break room? There was a coffee machine in there. Interview rooms?), on the far side of the room and there were plain-clothed and uniformed police working all around him.

Tsuna was wheeled up to the side of the desk and a heavy-looking wooden chair was moved from the front of the desk to make room for him. The detective moved one of his file-boxes out of the way so he had a bit of clear desk next to him and handed him a colouring book and a stationery box dug out from one of his drawers. "I got these for my nephew but he never touched them, he's SUCH a weird kid, I thought you might enjoy them instead." The man said as he handed them over, sitting down in his own chair to sort through the files he had tucked under his arm.

Accepting the colouring book and placing the stationery box on the clear bit of desk next to him Tsuna took a peek into the box, (there were colouring pencils, an eraser and a sharpener inside), and then opened the book to flip through it. He was about four pages in when a splash of colour caught and drew his attention to a meticulously coloured in bear. It's fur was done in shades of brown and black, the details of its eyes were carefully drawn in and shaded, complete with the iris, the whites and the shine of light that would have hit those eyes were untouched. Flipping further through the book showed that the same attention-to-detail had been paid to the other animals in the book, it was only the plants, people and every-day objects that had been ignored.

"I think your nephew may be a little more normal than you think he is." Tsuna grinned. "I think he just likes animals more than anything else… or at least he likes SOME animals." He corrected himself as he caught sight of a sheep and a cow covered in drawn-in bite marks, 'blood' welling up from the 'injuries'.

The detective paused in organizing his files, craned his head to look, started smiling at the coloured in animals but then then palmed his face when he caught sight of the unfortunately bleeding cow and sheep. "… that kid. I swear I am never going to understand him." he muttered, taking a moment to massage his temples.

"You could get him a pet? Looks like he likes small animals, none of the cats, birds, rabbits or dogs got bitten." Tsuna observed, pulling back the book for a bit from where he'd angled it so the detective could see and showing the man the carefully coloured, and completely 'uninjured' animals. "Maybe he just needs a bigger lunch or something, he only bit the farm-animals."

"… I might just pass that bit about his lunch on to his parents but I am NOT rewarding his current behaviour by getting him a pet." The man remarked, getting up from his desk he collected a few of the files as he did so and reached over to ruffle his hair a bit. "Got a job in mind for when you grow up? You'd make a pretty good detective with observational skills like that."

Tsuna couldn't help the bitterness that slipped into smile on his face. Sure, a detective. With a father who was somehow connected to the hitman that had tried to kill him, the hitman who had been scared of the consequences of pissing that same man off. Would he even get the chance to choose his own career? Also… how was he supposed to plan for a future he didn't even know he'd reach? It made for a nice dream though, working along-side this sharp-minded detective sometime in the future, helping people and punishing criminals. Working with someone who would listen to him when he talked and valued his opinion enough to share… but wasn't THAT wishful thinking.

Tsuna wiped the look off his face when he realized the detective had frozen and ignored the piercing stare the man was levelling at him. Reaching into the stationery box as if he hadn't noticed was easy after three days of the same, and riding out the uncomfortable silence was easier, all he had to do was turn his attention back to the colouring book. He snatched up a pencil up at random and checked the colour before using it. Green, perfect, he could fill in the blank areas that the detective's nephew hadn't touched.

Detective Hibari sighed heavily, as if the pointed silence hadn't been enough, and lifted the hand from his hair. "Just sit tight, I'll be right back, we're just going to get things set up and then we can get you home." he didn't bother looking up from the colouring book, just nodded and continued colouring in. As much as he admired him for his job Tsuna was more than a little tired of being the subject of the man's intense focus.

Colouring in the plants around the animals was surprisingly relaxing, bit by bit he was winding down from the tension that had him pulling his shoulder-blades so tight. He easily lost himself in the mind-numbing relief of doing something he didn't have to hold his brain back on and made a mental note to maybe get himself some colouring books of his own…

Tsuna was jolted out of the zen-like state ten minutes later when a highly irritated cop abruptly stopped by. The uniformed cop dropped a dark haired boy he'd been carrying under an arm onto the seat that had been moved to make way for his wheelchair and clapped the end of a pair of handcuffs around the one of the kid's wrists to secure him to the heavy chair.

"I… what?" Tsuna gaped as the dark haired boy hiffed at the officer in equal irritation.

"Don't you _hiff_ at me you little hellcat." The cop snapped at the other boy before turning to him. "Do you know where Detective Hibari is? I was told he was back already?"

"H… he was just here, he said he'd be right back…"

"Oh thank god." The man said feelingly as he slapped a small key onto the top of the filing cabinet where his charge presumably couldn't reach it. "My job here is done. Don't get too close, he'll try to bite you."

"O…okay…?" Tsuna replied, staring quizzically after the man as he left before turning to the glaring kid with the strangely familiar grey eyes. "What did you do?"

The boy stopped glaring to stare, strengthening the feeling of Deja-vu Tsuna was getting from those grey eyes, and replied after a lengthy silence. "…………………I bit a herbivore to death."

"… herbivore? Bit to death?" Tsuna repeated slowly, tilting his head in confusion but then starting as the sound of a loud wailing reached his ears. Straightening, he popped his head up to see over towards the lifts, where the sound was coming from, and watched as a sobbing teenager was led in through the doors by his parents and another cop.

Both of the teenager's eyes were blackened, an arm was in a sling and there was a strip of bandage plastered across the bridge of the boy's nose, was it broken? Tsuna's eyes widened, not from the injuries but because he _recognized_ the sobbing teen. This was one of the same kids who had been responsible for the scar running through one of Sasagawa Ryohei's eyebrows two years ago!

"That guy?" Tsuna clarified, pointing to the teenager in question. "What did he do?" He asked further when his desk-mate nodded slowly.

"The herbivore tried to stand above his station on the food chain. I merely returned him to where he belonged." the boy replied, lounging in the heavy chair with a highly self-satisfied smirk. "As expected, a herbivore will always lose against a carnivore."

Tsuna processed that for a moment. "…… so he tried to pick on you and you… taught him why that was a bad idea?"

"Are you going to repeat everything I say?" The boy bandied back dryly instead of answering his question and yawned widely afterwards, seemingly wholly unconcerned with being cuffed to the chair by a police officer.

Placing his pencil down Tsuna carefully got up out of the wheelchair, planted a hand on the desk to save himself from falling face-first onto its surface, and then slowly made his way over to the filing cabinet. He raised himself up on his tip-toes, scrabbled for a bit to reach the key and almost fell backwards when he finally managed to grab it. When he finally righted himself he rounded the detective's desk again and held it out for the other boy to take.

"Go, be free." Tsuna jokingly saluted, "You earned it." he then dropped the key into the other boy's palm when the kid made no move to take it from him, pointedly waving him away when he stayed frozen.

"Why would you…?"

"Because that jerk-face is one of the biggest bullies I have ever had the displeasure of meeting?" Tsuna answered easily as he sat himself back down in the wheelchair, picking up the pencil again to continue colouring. "Good on you for giving him what he deserves, you should have bit him harder though, him and his friends gave another kid I know a permanent scar through his eyebrow."

Grey eyes narrowed thoughtfully, as if the boy was measuring the truth in his words as he silently turned the key around in his palm, finally moving to free himself after a long stare but not to escape like Tsuna would have done the second he was free. He merely sat there after carelessly tossing the cuffs and key into the waste-paper basket without looking and continued to stare.

"… are you waiting for a written invitation?" Tsuna asked sarcastically, quirking an eyebrow at the kid.

"There's no need for me to escape, I was acting in… self-defense."

He snorted at that, self-defense, sure. The grey eyed boy's black hair was a little tousled and his clothes were slightly mussed up, likely from being carried around like a sack of meat, but other than that there wasn't a scratch on this kid. Whereas on the other hand the teenager had a broken nose, a pair of black eyes to match and what looked like a fractured wrist on top?

"So you're just going to sit here and wait to get into trouble?" he asked skeptically, eyebrow raised in disbelief.

"They'll make noise and crowd if I try to leave." The nutcase sighed in an aggrieved manner, not saying anything further as if that last statement was all the answer his question needed.

" _Okay_ … then did you want to colour with me while you wait? We can share."

The dark haired boy spent another long and uncomfortable moment staring, (was he trying to stare him down?), and then backed down. Scooping up the colouring book the boy flipped to an uncoloured page, flattened the book across the desk and dug into the stationery box for a pencil of his own. "I'm colouring in the animals, you do the plants."

"… did you just call me a herbivore?"

OoO

It didn't take Minoru very long to gather together some stock-photographs the police kept on hand for photo line-ups, it was a simple matter of picking the closest match in the photographs they had on hand to the foreigner's looks. Brown hair, tan, green eyes. He could have pulled these photos and shown them to the man's victim earlier but he'd held back on it, wanting to see if getting the boy away from the hospital environment would change the boy's guarded replies. However, aside from the boy pointing out something he should really have noticed earlier, (revealing Kyouya's unexpectedly adorable side in the process), Tsunayoshi's lips had stayed sealed.

The social worker had said she was going to use the time available to interview the mother without her son around as well as the boy's classmates and teachers. He was going to have to ask her for some advice on how to work with a kid like this because he wasn't used to this kind of guarded attitude from children. Her comment about seeing the people in her cases as cats may have been rather eye-opening but he half wished she'd kept to herself, he was now having trouble trying to get the mental image out of his head.

Sawada Tsunayoshi reminded him more of a lion-cub than a kitten though, there was a core of pure steel buried under that harmless exterior. If he'd had any doubts about it after the boy's escape from the gunman then all he had to do was walk back to his desk to discover it.

Kyouya. Socializing with another child. Sharing a colouring book and actually talking. It was a scene that had to be witnessed in person to be believed. Yun was IN NO WAY going to believe that this had happened, neither was Satoshi. What a time to leave his phone on his desk, he'd have given anything to be filming the scene that was happening right now!

 _"My kingdom for a camera…"_ Minoru breathed, afraid of moving just in case he was hallucinating the interaction.

A co-worker discreetly signalled for his attention and pointed at the camera in his hands, the grin across his face slashing ear to ear and threatening to split his face in half. He quickly slithered up to the man's desk and ducked low so the kids wouldn't see him. "Kiriyama, I owe you more than I can ever pay back! How long have you been filming?" he whispered.

"From the start!" Kiriyama Toshiya cackled quietly, trying to temper the unholy glee in his voice. "Kyouya usually scares the piss out of other kids so I thought I was going to catch a good reaction but holy hell! Where did you pick fluffy up from? Kid's got balls of steel!"

"Remember the case I'm on? The gunman? That's the kid from the case… lend me your phone, Kyouya is NEVER like this, I need evidence" Minoru whispered back. "His parents are never going to believe it, it needs to be immortalized."

Toshiya pulled his desk drawer open and dropped another camera into his hand. "I was going to print out the photos of the holiday I just came back from with my girlfriend but go right ahead and delete as many photos as you need. She works in the traffic division, she'll understand."

"Kyouya's been making a pain of himself hasn't he? Little pest." Minoru grimaced, grudgingly fond of the crazy brat. "He used to be so cute and sweet, then his dad let him watch the Jurassic Park movies and David Attenborough Documentaries, You know, that British naturalist guy with the ridiculously soothing voice? The little monster learned his katakana and kanji just so he could read the subtitles… it all just went downhill from there."

"I wondered where he was picking up his English from, the words he uses are quite… unique."

"That's one way to put it." Minoru coughed, switching the flash off and slowly standing up so he could get a better view through the camera without alerting the kids to the fact they were being filmed and recorded.

The scene was so adorable he had trouble keeping himself from laughing outright. Sawada Tsunayoshi and Kyouya were arguing softly over how they should colour a particular animal in. From what he could see… Kyouya had done to the pig they were arguing over what he'd done to the other farm animals in the book, drawn in bite marks and coloured the 'wounds' in red. Tsunayoshi was arguing the merits of 'bandaging' them since it would be cruel to just leave the 'poor thing' like that and Kyouya was trying to tell him to leave it alone.

There was a brief stare-down, narrowed grey eyes staring down at chocolate-brown doe eyes, and then the impossible happened, Kyouya… gave in. With a great huff of annoyance the dark haired nine-year-old turned away to continue colouring, focusing on a bird this time, the look on his face clearly saying he didn't CARE what happened as long as he didn't have to do it himself. Sawada gave a little huff of his own, reached for the eraser and carefully erased the blood Kyouya had drawn in, picked up a pencil and then drew little Band-Aids over the disputed areas. His nephew sniffed at the correction, having watched it all happen out of the corner of his eye and then returned to the pig to touch up the picture, not adding any more bites but fixing the areas his new friend had accidentally smudged.

Toshiya bit into his fist to keep from making any noise, folding slightly in over himself and Minoru had to crouch down again and stop taking photographs so he could muffle his own cackle into an arm. He needed to get his act together, as much as he wanted to let the stupidly adorable moment continue he had a job to do and Sawada looked like he was starting to look tired again.

Pinching an arm he waited till he felt he was calm enough to keep a straight face and saluted as he ducked back down. "Wish me luck, Kyouya might not let me take his new friend away without trying to bite my arm off." He whispered, as he prepared to slink back to the doorway and pretend he hadn't just spent the last few minutes spying on the two kids sitting oh-so-cutely at his desk. "Get me copies of everything and I owe you. Whatever you want."

"Even if I ask you to cover for me on weekends?" Kiriyama grinned teasingly even as he started hunting around his desk for his camera case.

"Whatever you want, seriously."

"Sold! Expect it on your desk in about an hour!"

Minoru returned to his desk with a straight face, casually cuffed his nephew to the chair he'd been freed from as he sat himself down at his desk and very, very carefully kept himself from laughing at the look on the brat's face. He hooked the waste-paper basket, and it's contents, out of the boy's reach with his foot and wondered how his nephew had gotten the key to the cuffs inside. "I'll deal with you later." He promised the little devil, "You're lucky you caught me in a good mood." Kyouya huffed, glared at the new handcuffs now trapping his left hand to the chair again and looked at him pointedly before shifting to his colouring companion and back.

"Verbalise Kyouya, it shouldn't be too difficult."

"… herbivore."

Little brat!

"Okay, you want to be rude? Then there's no need to introduce you to my little friend here." he declared, turning away from him and back to the file he placed on his desk, now completely ignoring him. He wasn't going to reward that kind of behaviour, besides he had work to do, he was going to pretend the chair Kyouya was occupying was empty. It would be easier on his blood pressure.

"Okay Tsunayoshi-kun, I have a stack of six pictures here and I'm going to be showing them to you one by one. I want you to look at all of them and then tell me which man is the one who attacked you, if at any point you feel like you need to stop just tell me and I'll pack the photo's away. Are you ready?"

"Yes." The brown haired boy replied shortly, the guard he had dropped around Kyouya now back up in place. Wasn't that an interesting reaction? Kyouya usually had the opposite effect on his peers.

"Alright then, here we go." he said, carefully handing the first photograph over.

Tsunayoshi immediately shook his head and gave it back, doing the same to the next three photographs before stopping at the fifth one. "This is him."

He froze in the act of handing the last photograph over. "Are you sure?"

"Yes." The boy replied, sharp brown eyes looking down at the photograph he held in his hands. Instant recognition with no confusion whatsoever, wasn't that interesting? Especially given that the kid had spent the last three days telling everyone he couldn't remember much of what had happened. Sawada Tsunayoshi was going to be one tough little nut to crack, there was something wrong here, a secret that the boy was desperate to keep. What kind of secret could a seven-year-old have that would get him to clam up like this? Keep secret even from the police?

"… do you remember anything else from the attack?" Minoru tried one last time. He wasn't going to push very hard on this, the boy looked like he was half a second away from bolting, but he wasn't going to back down. He was going to give the kid some breathing room and hopefully build up some trust because he wasn't getting anywhere like this.

Tsunayoshi shook his head at the question and that was enough for Minoru, reaching into his desk drawer he pulled out a business card and gave it to the boy. "Okay then." He replied getting up from the desk so he could pull the boy's wheelchair out from behind the desk. "If you remember anything else call me? Any time of the day, any day of the week."

"… okay." The boy murmured, carefully turning the card over in his small hands, reading the information printed on the surface before looking up at him almost pleadingly. "Am I allowed to go home now?"

"Yes you are, I'll just drop you off. Don't want you collapsing on your way there, you only just got out of hospital." Minoru replied, wheeling the kid away from the desk, easily ignoring his nephew's pointed glare. Kyouya tried to drag the chair he was cuffed to after them but with no real results. The chair had been a joke at first, a group of harassed officers pooling together to get one made that could stand against the little hellion's love and attention. It was made out of wood-covered. Solid. Metal. It was heavy, it was sturdy and the idea had been that it would take more than strength than Kyouya had in him to move or break it, at least for a few years.

It hadn't taken very long for the police officers in the precinct to realize exactly how valuable that particular chair was in keeping his nephew in line.

Minoru ignored the clatter that was the sound of Kyouya kicking at the ground to reach the waste-paper basket for the handcuffs and key he'd seen in the waste basket as he'd gone to sit down, (which was why he'd hooked it out of reach with his foot), and kept on wheeling the boy out. If Kyouya wanted an introduction he was going to have to talk like the human being he had been BORN as and not act like the little animal he'd turned into. That snapping and growling was just going to be ignored and the brat was either going to learn some manners or forget about seeing his new friend any time soon.

Besides, Tsunayoshi was still wired, looked like he was fighting the urge to sleep again and had to be far too stressed for a play-date right now. He'd let the boy have some rest before he dropped Kyouya on him, (and ONLY if the brat behaved). God knew his nephew was in sore need of some quality socialization.

"Let's get you home shall we?"

OoO

Tsuna spent most of the weekend preparing himself to look in on the office building he'd escaped from. He managed to wait long enough for his body to heal enough to allow for free movement, (using the trick he'd discovered in the hospital to speed up the process), before his need for answers became too strong to ignore.

It also took him that long before he deemed himself ready enough to explore the place. He refilled his flask the first chance he got and let himself fall back into the inevitable 'nap' without a single grumble. He hadn't bothered with leaving the house to top up his flask with flames, he'd long since learned the fine-control it took to direct the flames into the small opening without incident. Instead he'd merely closed the curtains and shut his door, he hadn't exactly felt safe at the idea of leaving the house without the extra security it offered, he'd use the bowling alley again when he was absolutely sure it was safe to do so.

He spent all of Friday sleeping off the after effects of flipping the seal again and woke up Saturday morning more than ready to prepare for his little 'trip'. He took the shower he'd been itching for during his hospital stay, washed out the old hair dye he'd gone to a lot of trouble to keep in his hair for the last few days and combed more in before his hair dried.

An excuse of buying new school supplies and he was out the door with his mother's blessing with a handful of notes tucked carefully into a pocket of his jacket. A sports cap was set firmly on his head, a pair of gloves was pulled on and a scarf was wound around his neck so he could slip his flask carefully into the folds and tuck the excess material down the front of his jacket.

Caution was Tsuna's new policy. He'd always been a little cautious, (he couldn't help but be with the dreams he'd had his whole life), but now he couldn't exactly afford to be so careless with his safety. He had HITMEN after him now, it was almost like the Snatchers and Death Eaters had jumped out of dream-land and transformed to fit reality. Which was great, that was going to make for some fantastic nightmare fuel in the future, he just knew it.

He stopped by the second hand shop, picked up a school bag for a fraction of the price it would have cost him if it had been brand-new and a trip to a 100yen shop and he had all the school supplies he needed. He'd long since given up on buying new, expensive things, what was the point when they were just either going to get stolen or destroyed? Bullies. No longer threatening to his person… but his belongings were always going to be another story.

Retracing the steps he'd taken to get away from his kidnapper Tsuna spent a lot of time just circling the building before he entered it.

He paced a healthy distance away from the building watching the people walking past and watching out for anyone paying him too much attention. He pulled out his flask and took small sips of tea every now and then, building up enough 'liquid courage' to hype himself into taking that last step into exploring. Enough that he was warm without drowning in his emotions and so that he was free to think as clearly and as fast as he wanted. His stride smoothed out with every step he took and he had to loosen his scarf and stash it in his newly-bought bag by the time he'd circled the building for the third time. By the time he made his fourth and last circuit he'd shrugged off his jacket and tied it off around his waist, he wasn't about to risk passing out from overheating.

It really was a kidnapper's dream, that building. Three stories high, he hadn't noticed that when he'd been running down the stair-well, that or he hadn't paid much attention to that fact. The neighbouring offices were abandoned too, they must have belonged to the same company. Several business had gone under within the last few years, the amusement park just outside the city limits having gone bankrupt had really hurt Namimori that way. Almost every single one of its associated businesses had gone under too. The bowling alley Tsuna liked to use as a practice arena was one such business, these were more of the same.

Slipping around the back of the building he squirrelled up a tree and boosted himself over the fence, not even trying to walk in through the front gate. If the man had a partner… then it would be suicide, why announce your presence when you didn't have to? Landing lightly in the rear courtyard he waited for any sign he'd been noticed as he padded a tight ring around the building. No one was coming out so… he was going to try checking inside. Oh, there was the car the kidnapper had used to kidnap him, the coral-pink Suzuki Swift the man had been leaning over when they met… another reason to hate the colour pink.

Ignoring the car for now he slipped his shoes off at the entrance, once again to ensure absolute silence, and padded in through the doors in his socks. He kept his ears peeled for sound as he went room to room on the first floor, checking for people first before continuing into the room to look for clues. Repeating the process on the second floor he continued up to the third floor and inched his way off the staircase step by step. One noise and he was going to bolt RIGHT back out of the building, clues to find or no clues. A quick check-through of the rooms and he was safe to explore the room he'd woken up in.

The place was abandoned and had probably been that way since he'd gotten the hitman arrested. He turned to the door he had tied shut with rope and lightly stepped his way around the mess, picking up discarded pieces of rope as he went and dumping them inside the room. Best not leave anything for the cops to contradict the story he'd fed them, just in case they ever found this place, who knew how they'd take it?

Hello, there were the sneakers he'd left behind in his escape the week before. Guess there was no more need to walk around bare-foot, the building was deserted… Slipping his feet into the shoes Tsuna eyed the hitman's belongings, even if the building was occupied he'd hopefully hear anyone coming, it had taken quite a bit of effort to stay silent in such an old building and someone as heavy-footed as an adult would find it nearly impossible to sneak up on him.

The papers around the room were his school and hospital records, there were even a few letters that had to have been taken directly out of their letterbox. Bills and letters addressed to 'The Sawada Residence'. A credit card statement sitting on the floor near the sports bag had his father's name circled and underlined in pen, clipped to the back of the statement with a paperclip were two photographs. One of the pictures had to have been stolen from their family home, a stand-alone shot of his father, and Tsuna felt every hair on his body stand on end at the thought of the hitman having had access to their house. The professional killer had been able to steal one of his mother's precious photographs from their family album all without anyone noticing. His mother thought she'd just misplaced the picture and she'd been looking all over the house for it a week or so before the hitman had approached him!

Tsuna had to look at the next picture twice before he realized the blond man captured was also his father, only clean-shaven and wearing a sharp suit-and-tie combo. The hard expression on the man's face… was one he'd never thought he'd ever associate with his father.

What the hell?

Leafing absently through the remaining papers Tsuna came across a school report from before the incident with the tree and realized that this one had more photographs clipped to it. These were of him before and after the accident, one was of him with his hair blond and his eyes… had been an interesting shade of amber-brown, at least they had been in the picture the man had stolen. In the next photograph… he could see the differences that had caused the man to think he might have accidentally stumbled on a body double.

Body language, expression, general health and overall appearance. Compared to his five year old self he was an absolute mess. His younger self looked quietly confident, at ease in his own skin and blissfully innocent. He… really had fallen quite the distance the day he'd fallen out of the tree hadn't he? In more ways than one. Add it all together with the hair, the plain brown eyes with the visible signs of stress and it was no wonder that the man had thought he'd gotten the wrong kid when he'd 'picked up' his target.

The sports bag held clothes, a digital camera in a zipped up case that Tsuna didn't bother checking before dropping it into his school bag along with the cables that presumably went with it, (he'd go through the photos later), there was a small box of bullets and a spare gun, (exactly how much artillery did one man need to kill a seven year old?), a large knife tucked into a leather sheath and a tightly rolled cylinder of Japanese currency that Tsuna stared at for a long while before pocketing. To the victor went the spoils, he was calling this Karma and divine retribution. He was going to go get himself a cake and share it with his mother when he got home and the hitman could sit in a jail-cell and ROT for all he cared. He double-checked the sports bag, making sure he'd searched every pocket, before he repacked it and set it aside once he was done.

Picking up and collecting every bit of loose paper into his new school bag Tsuna checked through what was left in the room. The hitman's cell phone wasn't anywhere to be found, (the man had probably taken that with him), and there was nothing else of note aside from a flat wooden crate. The crate turned out to be empty but it was lined with plastic sheeting that was taped to the sides with duct tape. It didn't take a genius to figure out what the man had been planning on using that box for or even that much of a stretch of the imagination.

Sitting back on his heels he rubbed at his face for a bit, if things had gone differently that would have been his… Yeah, fantastic. Why NOT just add more gallons to the tank of nightmare fuel he had going on here? Shakily pulling his flask out Tsuna took a deep, fortifying swig of tea and for the first time in his life wished he was drinking something a little stronger, maybe something alcoholic. Because if there was ever a time he needed to get drunk? Now would be that time. Just what had his father gotten him mixed up in?

He pulled a glove off and clenched his hand, closed his eyes and called to his flames. He didn't try pulling for the flames locked away under the seal, (doing that would just knock him into nap-time), but if he'd been able to play around with the flames his father had left to heal him... then maybe he could use the flames he currently had running through his system the same way. If he was wrong he'd just end up napping off his bright idea but if he was right… Reaching deep inside himself he pulled, not at the seal but at the flames flowing AROUND the seal. The flames he'd infused into his tea for the express purpose of warming himself up, they would hopefully serve a new, more important, purpose.

Glittering amber flames flickered to life as he unclenched his hand and he had to stop himself from staring at them, reaching down Tsuna swept his hand across the surface of the roughly hewn box and guided his flames into consuming his would-be coffin. The flames ate through the container in near silence and within seconds he was left staring down at fine ash. He staggered away from the smouldering pile and leaned up against the wall, panting for breath. Movement caught his attention from the corner of his eye and he turned to face it, relaxing when he realized he'd just caught sight of himself in the reflection of the window.

He'd changed again, his eyes were now the same solid amber they had been when he'd gone to rescue the Sasagawa siblings but the candle-like flickers of flame that had appeared on his forehead during that rescue… were absent. Was that because flames he was using now were weaker? Because they were, by quite the fair margin, even the emotional effects of the flames were heavily muted.

Feeling his vision start to swim Tsuna hastily fumbled to fish his flask out again and took another deep draw from it before the cold could begin to spike into his system. He could use his flame-tea like the flames he initially pulled up from the seal. That was unbelievable. The flames were weaker and it took a lot out of him but… he hadn't blacked out. Tsuna let a small smile slip onto his face as rubbed a hand across is eyes and breathed out a near-silent laugh into the lip of his flask. He could use his flames. Without blacking out. If he'd been looking for a silver lining to this whole situation there it was.

He'd discovered two new things he'd never have noticed without the 'outside' help he'd gotten. He could heal himself by changing the sparkles already present in his flames into round little spheres of flaring light and he could actively use those same flames without having to push against the seal every single time. Thank god, as weak as the flames were at least it was SOMETHING he could protect himself with! If push came to shove he could drink his tea and use THOSE flames without risking a black out.

Straightening Tsuna wobbled a bit as he got up, he pulled his glove back on, tucked his flask away into a pocket and hooked the sports bag up and left the building, stopping only to scoop up the shoes he had discarded at the entrance as he went past, tying the laces onto the a strap of his backpack, and walked around the building to where his kidnapper had had parked in the small, sheltered parking bay to test one of the car doors.

He dropped the sports bag on the ground and climbed into the unlocked car to search through the glove compartments, the pockets of the seats, under those same seats and even checked the cup holders. He found a set of number plates sitting on the back seat and when he unfolded the shades a set of keys dropped down. Unlocking the car boot he found a pair of women's sneakers, a set of work-out clothing, (also for women), a few cloth shopping bags and some folded rags. The car had to be stolen, there was no way the guy owned this car. A quick check of the car's number plates showed that the screws securing them to the car looked like they were an inch from being stripped. The hitman had been a little too enthusiastic with replacing the plates hadn't he?

Realizing he wasn't going to be finding anything else in the area Tsuna paused for a moment to check the nearby trash cans before leaving. Newspapers, convenience-store food packages, discarded napkins, chopsticks and plastic cutlery. Had the guy actually lived in that office building for a bit? Leaving the area Tsuna jogged a good few blocks away and then dropped the sports bag again. He pulled out the gun he'd found so that it sitting on top of the clothing in the bag in plain view and then dashed away into a nearby phone booth to call the police. This way they'd find it and take it to the police station, the police there would either connect the bag to the hitman or not, he didn't really care as long as he never saw the bag again.

He watched the police that arrived, (in a very short amount of time!), from the safety of a hedge, he didn't want to be found when the police started searching the surroundings, he'd rather spare himself the round of 'twenty questions' that was likely to follow. He stuck around only long enough for the police officers to locate the bag he'd 'reported' and left as quickly as he could without making it look like he was running away. At the very least the gun, (and knife), weren't going to picked up by anyone else now that the police had 'found' the bag.

His mother was watering the flower garden when he got home, paying particular loving attention to the riot of sunflowers that followed the fence-line, and welcomed him home with a warm smile.

"Tsu-kun~! Did you get everything you need?"

Tsuna couldn't help but smile back in response, the warmth of her greeting soothing away the raw edges of the emotional upheaval he'd suffered these last few days.

"I… hope so." He replied, hand tightening on the grip he had on the straps of his 'new' bag. He'd discovered a lot about himself, he had information to work off of now and that was without taking into account the names the hitman had unwittingly told him about.

He had so many questions and it was more than clear that he wasn't going to be getting them out of his father. It didn't matter though, he had a starting point now… a backpack full of clues, a camera and the names CEDEF and Vongola. As much as it felt like he had barely moved forward he had to keep reminding himself that he WAS making progress, it might just be baby-steps the whole way but even these smalls steps were eventually going to get him somewhere. He'd take these little steps and collect every little scrap of information he could pick up because he knew that they were just pieces of a larger puzzle and one day it would all come together.

Letting himself into the house Tsuna took his shoes off and put them away, untied the other pair from his backpack and put them away too. Trooping upstairs he unloaded everything he'd picked up onto the coffee table in his room and spread them out, his school supplies were packed back into his bag, everything else he carefully sorted through with a sharp eye.

He didn't find anything about two names the hitman had dropped, it was all information the man had collected while watching him. School reports, days attended and missed spanning back at least four years. His health records both from the school and hospital, there were even a few dental records in the pile Tsuna picked up. There were the bills stolen from the letter box, a postcard from his father and even a few bits of junk mail mixed in with the lot and finally the four photographs.

Taking the two that had clearly been stolen from the family album, (the picture of his father and the picture of himself at age five), Tsuna made a mental note to put them somewhere his mother would find them later and reached for the camera. He didn't even have to charge the thing, it still had a good bit of battery life left, clicking through the settings he found the button that allowed him to view the pictures taken and scrolled through them.

He wondered how on earth he'd missed the man following him for so long, there had to be at least two weeks' worth of pictures here! They were taken at all times of the day and featured just about every place he visited with the exception of the bowling alley. The school, the library, the park and the shopping district. There were photos of him walking by himself, of him saying his goodbyes to the school librarian, of him in the garden tending to the plants and a few shots taken of him with his mother.

He had clearly been the hitman's target.

Deleting the photographs Tsuna removed the memory card, flicked it outside his bedroom window and then tossed the camera at the wall hard enough to break it. He got up and picked it up just so he could do it again and again, why did things have to get this complicated? Why couldn't he be like the other kids for once? Their lives revolved about popularity, games, school, sports and grades. Some had to worry about bullies just like he did but no, his life just couldn't be that simple.

Why was normal so hard reach?

OoO

Returning to class on Monday was terrifying, he'd never been the center of that much focus before, (at least not outside of his dreams), and the undivided attention he got from his classmates when he walked into the classroom almost made him want to turn around and run right back home. Why the hell was everyone looking at him like that? Even the teacher was giving him a good long and considering look.

Had he forgotten his hair-dye? Had he missed a spot? Had he suddenly grown horns or something?

Walking stiffly to his seat Tsuna sat himself at his desk and kept his head down and pulled out a notebook and pencil to avoid the stares, not knowing that the story of his kidnapping had made the rounds of the school and his week-long absence had only added fuel to the rumour-mill. He only realized what was going on when his desk was surrounded on all sides as soon as recess was called and he was crowded in by curious classmates that looked like they were all foaming at the mouth for information.

"Tsunayoshi-kun! Is it true that you were kidnapped?" one girl asked, pushing right up into his personal bubble and so close that her curly brown hair brushed his face. Everyone waited for his response with bated breath and even the teacher was hovering near the door, clearly waiting to hear it too.

"I… yes?"

Exclamations rippled through the crowd and everyone started talking at once, questions piling one on top of the other as kids pushed at each other so they could get to the front and deliver a question.

"What happened to your face?" a boy asked, pulling the girl with the curly hair back and pushing forward to tilt his head at the yellowed bruise still on his face.

"The guy hit me…" Tsuna replied and then winced back as the crowed 'oohed' at that.

"Did it hurt?" another girl cooed making him cringe back further in his seat, wondering why the girl had even bothered to ask the question.

"… yes."

"Were you tied up?" another classmate asked, jumping up to ask his question.

"With rope, yeah." He answered that one, rubbing his palms in remembrance. He was glad he'd learned how to heal himself or the welts would still be there.

"How did you escape?" the same boy asked, leaning down over the desk to check his hands, wrinkling his nose in disappointment at the lack of visible proof.

"… he didn't tie the rope up very tight." Tsuna lied, averting his eyes from the stare boring into his face. "I ran after that."

"Did he have a gun?" the girl with the curly brown hair asked and everyone went silent when he couldn't supress the full-body flinch at the question. He nodded instead of answering verbally.

"Did you have to go to hospital?" the girl continued, the rest of their classmates letting her continue on grilling him. He nodded again without bothering to reply, shrinking away from the questions and wishing he could escape out the open classroom door. God, these kids should be working at the police station! They'd already pulled more out of him than the police had managed to, when were they going to let up?

"Ooh, did you have surgery?" the girl continued on with her interrogation and Tsuna just shrugged. "I don't know, I don't really remember much…"

"Oi…" a male voice interrupted, taking everyone's attention off of him for a moment and to the very back of the crowd where a tall boy with spiky black hair and hazel brown eyes was staring intently. "What happened to the kidnapper? The police caught him right?"

Tsuna's eyes widened, he recognized this boy, this was one of the kids he'd tripped over on his way to the police station! "You're the one that threw the baseball!" he exclaimed, rising up out of his seat, the crowd parted to allow the boy to move forward but Tsuna took the opportunity to escape instead. "Let me buy you a drink as a thank you."

He dragged the boy out of the classroom before anyone could really realize what was going on, sighing in abject relief when no one followed behind. "Sorry about that." He apologized, turning around to the boy he'd pulled out of the classroom, dropping the taller boy's hand as they reached the vending machines. "I just really needed to get out of there! To answer your question, yeah. They got him… did you call the police?"

"My dad did." The boy clarified, sheepishly scratching at a cheek. "I didn't even distract him did I? The ball missed."

"…it was a good thing that you did miss." Tsuna replied absently, feeding a few coins into the machine, "Don't get me wrong, I really am thankful that you tried to help but… what if you really had managed to hit him?" he asked, tapping out a box of plain milk and then reached down to collect it. "He had a gun. He could have shot you. Next time just run instead, you'll live longer."

"… next… time?"

"If you ever come across someone with a gun again." Tsuna babbled quickly, trying to cover up his slip. "What was your name again?" Tsuna asked hastily as he tossed the milk box to the boy to distract him and fed a few more coins into the machine for a drink of his own, hoping to steer the conversation away. "I think it was Yamamoto…"

"Takeshi, I'm Yamamoto Takeshi."

"Nice to meet you Yamamoto-kun, I'm Tsuna, Sawada Tsunayohi." He said as he tapped out a can of warm tea for himself, tucking it close to his chest as he turned away to walk back to the classroom, "We should get back, class is about to start again."

Tsuna felt Yamamoto's eyes boring into his back as he power-walked back to the classroom and wished the day would end already. Takeshi had focused on exactly the wrong part of what he'd said, ignoring the warning and latching onto the minute slip-up he'd made. There really was a lot of police potential in his class, future detective in the making right there! Not even Detective Hibari had picked up on his slip-ups quite that fast! Sharp as hell!

Stepping back into the doorway of the classroom Tsuna stopped and felt a little bit of his soul shrivel up and die when his classmates attention focused back on him. Slinking back to his seat he slumped into his chair and pressed his can of warmed tea against a cheek, not bothering to open it as he planned on emptying it into his flask later. Hopefully this would all die down once the excitement of the whole story faded, he'd go crazy under this kind of sustained focus!

The nosey little girl with the curly brown hair leaned down to his ear. "Did he touch you in the no-no place?" She whispered loudly and the class fell as silent as the grave as they waited for the answer.

Tsuna felt another piece of his soul shrivel up and die.

Yeah. This was going to be a long day.

OoO

By the time lunch break was over Tsuna discovered a downside to his newfound ability to heal himself and he'd done it the hard way, by stupidly trying to heal himself at school instead of finding somewhere semi-private like his hospital room had been or even his house.

He'd abandoned his self-imposed restriction on running to save himself from the lunch-time interrogation and had bolted out of the classroom, he'd headed down a hallway and had somehow managed to twist an ankle on the way down to the ground floor of the building. He'd sat himself down on the step he'd tripped on and had healed the injury, safe in the assurance that no one would see the flames. The flare of orange light went unseen but if he thought the attention from his classmates had been uncomfortable before he'd healed his ankle it was nothing to the attention he got afterwards, suddenly everyone in the school wanted a piece of him.

The sparkles in his flames… acted in almost the same way a Veela's allure did, he almost died when he realized exactly why he was drawing attention all the time. More sparkles meant more attention! He didn't know how to extinguish them without using them and people would NOTICE if the bruise on his face disappeared so quickly! He was never healing himself in public again and he was never going to try making his flames sparkle more than they already did!

Two steps forward, one step back. Did Sod's Law have to be quite so accurate in its aim? No wonder he'd had trouble with bullies his whole life! People followed him into the bathroom and even into the library when he retreated there to get away from the crowds. He caught sight of the librarian, Kimura Saito, swatting a group of kids out the door with the brush end of the broom a few minutes later and hid his face under a book, sinking down into his bean-bag as the loud group were herded out the door. Yamamoto Takeshi tried to slip past but was collared and tossed out after the rest of them, the grizzled, white haired old man not believing his excuse of wanting to find a book.

"You haven't stepped a willing foot into this library since you started school you little brat, I won't have you harassing my assistant, he's the only decent kid out of the lot of you!" The man growled, swatting the broom in the between them threateningly. "Back to whatever the rest of you brats do in your spare time, shoo!"

"I'll be quiet! I just want to read a book!" Takeshi protested, trying to slip past the old man again.

"Feh, sure you will. On with you and take your friends with you! I see you or any of your little 'buddies' try to bother Sawada-kun again and I'll USE this broom! Git!"

Everyone abruptly quieted down when a softly threatening, and familiar, voice interrupted the showdown.

"Herbivores crowding around and making noise… I'll bite you to death."

All the students who'd been at the library entrance scattered and Tsuna looked up from under his book just in time to catch sight of a familiar dark head of hair dash past the open doorway, chasing after the fleeing group. What the hell? Why were they running? Whatever. He didn't care, as long as he didn't have to deal with anymore gawkers or questions he didn't care what happened outside the library. He was almost tempted to stay for the rest of the day but then the school would call his mother... it just wasn't worth it.

When the school bell signalled the end of the day he was the first one out the classroom door and managed to scrape back into the library before anyone noticed where he'd gone. The librarian ruffled his hair and Tsuna felt himself relax as he fell into the long-familiar motions of helping the librarian close down the library for the day. Computers were shut down, books were put away and chairs were set neatly on study desks.

"They harass you like that again just kick 'em in the nuts, it hurts just as much for girls as it does for boys and I'll tell anyone it was self-defence." The man said when they were done, giving his hair another ruffle.

"I'll keep that in mind Saito-san." Tsuna laughed, he'd been doing that for years already anyway, just not with people 'harassing' him in the way they had been today. He was just going to have to keep the sparkles down to a minimum, surely he'd find a way to do it, sparking them to life was easy enough so it shouldn't be too hard to reverse the process…

Right?


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't figured out from the gist of it, you'll find out why Yun is so excited in the next chapter. I planned a lot to happen in this chapter and a lot did, just not the lot of things that I had planned. Derp. Oh well, that's how things roll with complicated stories. Hope you like it.
> 
> Try to get the Hibari family to do something they dun wanna do and they fight you, by putting up a big WALL up and blocking you. It's thanks to Yun that this chapter stalled for so long, she refused to cooperate till she got what she wanted. She totally stole the plot out of my hands and ran with it. I like how it ended up but goddamn. I spent practically the whole scene with her going "Yun, what are you doing? Yun, why are you doing that? Yun, please stahp!"
> 
> As always a special and loving thanks to Araceil for her help and for 13_to_fall for being my beta. Love you both so much~ 3
> 
> Also, just one more thing. Please, don't ask if this story is abandoned. It is NOT. If a chapter is taking a while to update? IT MEANS I AM WORKING ON IT! The only stories i have up on this site and AO3 are the ONLY stories I'm currently working on. You have no idea how much it upsets me when I see a review that tells me they assume I've abandoned the story.
> 
> Dusk To Dawn and Under Wing will never be abandoned. Stop asking and thank you for understanding.
> 
> If you haven't already, go have a look at Brightly Burning by Araceil, same things apply. Don't don't mention the word 'Abandoned', 'Hiatus' or any similar terms. Please. I'd also ask you guys not to bug me for updates but that would be asking for the moon. SIGH.
> 
> Thank you to those of you who've left their love and support, it's been great writing for you.

As he was finishing with closing down the last of the computers for the day, Tsuna paused as he reached for the off switch and stared contemplatively at the screen. It was open to a search engine, the same search engine he’d used to look up magic. He’d already finished with his self-appointed chores, the library was clean and all the books were put away, the floor was swept and chairs were neatly stacked on the tables. The librarian himself would be busy with his own preparations in the office for at least an hour… would that be enough time to look up any mention of the names the hitman had mentioned?

But then again, would it be safe to use the computers on school grounds? Drawing attention to his school was about the last thing he wanted to do, either by the police or whatever his father was tangled up in. Wavering for a few moments, Tsuna frowned at his own paranoia and bit his lip in indecision; then again who would be paying attention to the browser history of an elementary school?

Trying to dig up information on the two names his would-be kidnapper had dropped was an exercise in frustration.

Sitting down in the chair, Tsuna divided his attention between the screen and the door of the library’s office. He had no idea what kind of work the old man had to finish but it should give him at least an half an hour to browse in peace. The only children left at the school were the ones busy with club activities. Thank god. Usually he’d have used the time to dig up information on the wizarding world or magic… but since he had the opportunity, might as well use it.

The name CEDEF didn’t come up with anything suspicious at a quick glance through the first few pages of results the search engine had spat out. There was a College in France that used the same initials, several business companies and a law firm. Almost every search result he got was from the same country. He doubted very much that his hitman had been French, he’d had none of that tell-tale accent. He’d even spoken in English with an American accent.

Leaning back in his chair for a bit, Tsuna ran a frustrated hand through his hair; what could he do to narrow down the search field? If he was going to find the connection between his father and this mysterious CEDEF he was going to need more information, digging blindly like this was getting him nowhere. 

He remembered every moment of his kidnapping with crystal clarity, from the words the man had said, the clothes he’d been wearing and right down to the scent of the dusty room he’d woken up in. He turned it all over in his mind, every last bit of it, had been doing so since he’d woken up in the hospital. He’d even had that refresher in investigating the ‘scene of the crime’. If only the man had left his cell-phone behind, maybe that might have given him some more information!

The names CEDEF and Vongola were literally all he had gotten from the man. That alone wasn’t going to be enough. Not unless… Wait. His father. This all connected back to his father somehow. What did he even KNOW about his own father? He knew the man worked overseas but not what he really did for a living. He also knew… that his father’s ‘boss’ was the same old man who had placed the Seal on him.

Straightening up in his seat, Tsuna bit his lip as he tried to remember the man’s name, had he even been introduced within earshot… Timeteo. The old man’s name had been Timeteo! Who was, in his father’s own words: “A real Italian gentleman.” Typing Italy in addition to the acronym CEDEF didn’t turn up anything, but when he did the same to the name Vongola he got something. Vongola was Italian for ‘clam’, the search engine also spat out numerous recipes for clam pasta, (which he mostly ignored) and other Italian delicacies that used the shellfish.

He tried searching the internet for any connection between the names that the hitman had dropped and found nothing. He did the same with his grandfather’s name and got the same results. Then again, he WAS working with a very limited amount of information with what basically amounted to the bare scraps. He’d keep it all in mind though, you never knew what piece of information would end up cracking the mystery wide open. There just wasn’t enough to put anything together right now. He didn’t know how these small pieces of information fit together just yet but he knew that he’d figure it out when he had enough pieces of the puzzle. 

Well… there was one place he could look. In his own home. He’d search the house from top to bottom if he had to, there had to be something he could work with in the house. Shutting down the computer he picked up his discarded backpack and let himself out of the library after calling out a goodbye to the librarian, hesitating only when he went to actually step out into the corridor.

Taking a quick peek into the corridor he stuck his head out and scanned the hallway before deeming it safe enough to step out. He tightened the hold he had on the straps of his school bag, making them dig into his shoulders. Exactly how much of a chicken was he? To be too scared to simply walk out of the school grounds? How would an adult have dealt with the attention? Would they have found his classmates as intimidating as he had?

His peer’s behaviour today had been terrifying in a new and completely horrifying new level. They’d been like starving animals, all of them had wanted a piece of him and he was SMALL! There wouldn’t have been very much left of him after they’d gotten done with him! Making it to the library before anyone noticed felt like he’d escaped being eaten alive by the skin of his teeth! 

And he didn’t know if he meant that literally or not.

How had Harry Potter managed to just shrug off this kind of attention? Then again the wizard had had friends like Ron and Hermione to duck down behind when it all got a bit much, friends who had pulled double-duty as buffers. Wouldn’t it be great if he had just one of those for himself? But then again his pride and morals wouldn’t risk dragging someone else into his problems. Any friend of his would end up having to fend off his legion of bullies or… worse.

Wanting a friend right now, with the way his life had turned, was incredibly selfish. There were probably droves of people out there in the world who didn’t have what he had! He had a mother who loved him and when he counted his blessings he ran out of fingers to count them on. He had no right to feel… like this when he had so much going for him, especially when he’d had every opportunity in the world to make friends earlier. Before his life had fallen to pieces the way it had.

It might even a good thing that he hadn’t made friends before this; he’d have had to explain the Narcolepsy and the nights he spent in an abandoned bowling alley. Either that or come up with excuses for both and he’d have hated lying. Also, opening himself to the kind of pain Harry had felt whenever someone close to him got hurt... wasn’t something he was ever going to be strong enough to endure. Just the second-hand pain he felt seeing it through the wizard’s eyes felt like his whole world was breaking apart and dragging his heart along with it.

He’d worry about making friends when he was no longer in danger of dragging said friends into the death-trap that was his life. He wouldn’t survive another Sirius Black situation, second-hand as it had been; he just wasn’t as strong as his dream-self was. He’d stick to what he had; at the very least he’d be saving himself the heart-ache. 

Getting rid of the seal his ‘grandfather’ had put on his flames. Figuring out exactly what his flames were and how they worked. Finding out who or what CEDEF and Vongola are. He had enough on his plate. Juggling a friendship, (or friendships), on top of all that would just drive him insane. He didn’t want to waste what energy he had on… friends.

He couldn’t sit back and let things continue on the way it had been. Not now that he knew the underlying cause of the attention he kept drawing. He NEEDED to get that under control. There were just too many ways he could use the energy he was currently wasting ducking the people his ‘allure’ kept drawing. What if he was too exhausted to run from the next hitman? He wanted to live. He. Did. Not. Want. To. Die. He might not like the way he was living right now, but he didn’t hate it either, all he had to do was think back to the life his dream-self had lived to realize just how lucky he was. 

Harry Potter would have done anything to live the life he was currently living. The wizard hadn’t even had the memories of a dream-self to fall back on, he’d had to figure out everything for himself. The dreams he’d been having since before he could even remember were a resource Harry Potter hadn’t HAD. As much as he’d once hated the dreams and everything that came with them… they’d saved his life and had supported him this whole time. He had absolutely no room to complain. He knew his life wasn’t perfect but…

It could have been worse. 

OoO

Arriving at the Sawada residence Hashimoto Rin couldn’t help but admire the sight. As always the first thing that drew her attention as she stepped past the garden wall was the front of the property and its gorgeous garden, the garden full of flowers. She’d been at the house on a previous visit for an interview with Sawada Nana without the woman’s son present and had instantly fallen in love with the splash of colour the house made against the neighboring homes. It was almost criminal that there was a brick wall hiding it all away from the rest of the world.

Sunflowers, roses, poppies and daisies were the flowers that immediately drew the eye but there was so much more to love about the garden. There was even a small vegetable plot in the corner of the fence closest to the house that was full of bright and healthy plants. On this particular visit there was a small collection of gardening tools set neatly in a plastic bucket near the water tap, showing that someone had recently been gardening. It really said a lot about who did it all when all of the tools were small and child-sized.

Sawada Tsunayoshi seemed to have quite the green thumb.

There were no toys in the yard like one would expect of a family with a child. There was a lone pink ball but it was old, worn and half-shoved under the veranda. Likely put there by the child in question. A pink ball for a boy? Perhaps it had been red and had faded to the colour it was currently sporting.

A look around the house showed no safety rails on any of the windows of the second floor. No locks save for simple latches either. When she knocked on the door, she tested it and frowned when she realized that even the front door had been left unlocked.

“Sawada-san? It’s Hashimoto Rin from Children’s Services? We met at the hospital? May I come inside? Sawada-san?”

No answer. 

Letting the frown she was fighting slip onto her face Rin hesitated for a moment, why was the door unlocked if no one was answering? Had something happened to Sawada Nana? Should she call the police before venturing further? This WAS the home of a child who’d been accosted by a gun-wielding kidnapper, one who had so far kept his mouth shut on exactly why he’d targeted young Tsunayoshi. 

“Hashimoto-san~! What are you doing here?”

Rin nearly leaped out of her skin in surprise, having been peering cautiously into a window to see if anyone was coming, she hadn’t noticed the woman she was looking for come up behind her! Nana was holding several bags worth of shopping in her arms and was directing a beaming smile in her direction. 

“I came to… visit.” Rin said tactfully, opening the door for her and reaching out to liberate the woman of a few of the shopping bags. “I see you’ve been shopping.”

“Oh, thank you~! I almost dropped a few on the way home, I knew I should have taken a taxi!” The woman giggled as she angled her way into the house, discarding her shoes in the doorway and leading the way in. She’d gone shopping without locking the door? After her son had gotten kidnapped? If alarm bells hadn’t already been ringing from the interaction she’d witnessed at the hospital they’d certainly be ringing right now. 

“Do you always buy so much when you go shopping?” she asked curiously as she followed behind the woman, slipping her own shoes off and stepping into a pair of slippers by the door.

“Never.” Nana laughed, setting her bags on the kitchen table. “I usually buy enough for just the two of us. Today is special, I had to pick up a few things for Tsu-kun.” She grinned, rummaging around inside the bag that she’d placed on the table. “Look at these, aren’t they cute? They’re so little!” 

The woman showed her a pair of children’s fingerless sports gloves. Padded ones. She was also cooing over another unpadded leather pair that she’d pulled out of the bag and Rin felt the frown ease off her face a bit. This was unexpected, perhaps Nana wasn’t as air-headed as she’d first appeared. Was she planning on giving her son some self-defense preparation?

The doorbell rang.

“Ooh! They’re here!” Nana exclaimed, shoving the gloves she was holding into her pocket and running back for the door. “Tsu-kun is going to be so surprised when he gets home!”

Nana grabbed her Hanko-stamp from the hallway table and threw the door open wide to reveal a delivery man that was stood outside with a clipboard in hand. “Delivery for Sawada?” 

“Yes! Right here! Just put them on the grass please! On the lawn! Thank you very much for your hard work!” she grinned, taking the clipboard for a moment so she could affix her stamp on the document she was presented with.

Nana practically danced around the delivery men as they set down the two large boxes she’d had delivered. The woman darted back into the house for a pair of scissors and carefully sawed through the plastic cord tying the two boxes together. The woman pulled the boxes away from each other and began tearing into one, revealing what she had bought. 

A punching dummy. Two if you counted the other one was still wrapped up in its own box.

“I’ve wanted one of these since they first showed them on the news~!” Nana gushed as she freed the human shaped dummy from its wrappings. “See these lights? You’re supposed to punch them when they light up… now where’s the battery pack, whoops, forgot the batteries inside!” 

Nana dashed in and out of the house again, prying open a packet of batteries as she stepped out instead.

“You really went all out didn’t you?” Rin asked in wry amusement.

“It’s the best way to shop~!” Nana agreed, kneeling down to put the batteries in and then placing the cover back. “Let’s welcome Slam-kun home… with a bang!” she grinned, slapping the black and silver training dummy on its shoulder as she got up and catching it with a giggle when it bounced back towards her after it dipped face-first to kiss the ground.

“That was awful!” Rin laughed at the terrible attempt at a joke.

“Ooh~! He’s squishy! Try it Hashimoto-san! I’m going to run back inside and get the gloves I bought!”

A training dummy, training gloves and who knew what else. This was pretty far from the first picture she’d gotten of Sawada Nana. Instead of standoffish, careless and distant… Nana was displaying genuine care towards her son. How much of that would hold up under further observation was impossible to tell but right now… she had to wonder about the interaction she’d witnessed at the hospital. Was this her usual behaviour and had Nana been in shock the last time they’d met? Sometimes people tended to react in strange ways to stress, there were always going to be people who didn’t fit the norm… Or was her gut instinct right? 

When she’d been first called into the case she’d wanted to keep an open mind but it had been difficult. Everything in her screamed that Sawada Nana was an unfit mother. Sawada Tsunayoshi had been bruised, battered and had seemed so bitter that she’d seen it all in an instant. The painful yearning for the comfort he wasn’t getting and didn’t expect to get. The wistful longing for a better life. Jaded brown eyes had seemed far too old for such a young face, so much like he’d already seen far too much in his seven years that she’d already started mentally preparing herself for the worst.

There had to be something there. There HAD to be. There was just too much pain in Tsunayoshi’s eyes for the situation to be otherwise no matter HOW hard the boy tried to hide it. She’d seen that particular expression far too many times to mistake it. The only thing that held back her immediate knee-jerk reaction to separate Tsunayoshi from his parents was the genuine love the boy felt for his mother.

At the moment Rin didn’t care very much about Iemitsu, he might as well be non-existent as far as she was concerned, at least for the moment. She didn’t have the resources to chase the man down to Tokyo to interview him and she certainly didn’t care to. If or when the man popped back up she’d interview him then. What she got from him at the hospital at was more than enough to make for a case. 

She wanted to concentrate on the primary care-giver.

Tsunayoshi trusted his mother, utterly and completely. He clung to her like a life-line. It didn’t out-weigh the fact that he was used to his mother’s behaviour, (which meant it was nothing new to him and that was a very big minus in Nana’s favor), but it was certainly something she was going to have to look deeper into. There might be genuine love there but that did not mean that Nana should be in charge of such a young child. 

Children needed attention and whatever attention Nana was giving her son, (if any), it clearly wasn’t enough. He wanted more, that had been the most painful thing to watch at the hospital, he plain NEEDED more, all children did.

The neediness he’d displayed spoke clearly of emotional neglect and one day the pitiful scraps of affection his mother could scrape together wasn’t going to be enough for him. Eventually Tsunayoshi would lash out to get that attention, at school, in public or at home. This was how it all started. She’d seen it happen too many times, heard of similar situations by the dozens to even think for a second that this case would end up any different.

It was her job it stop that before it happened. 

“I found them! Hashimoto-san, do you want to try?” Nana asked, holding a pair of women’s sports gloves out for her to take.

“Calling me Hashimoto-san will get tiring. Please call me Rin, we’re going to be spending a lot of time together after all.” Rin replied, accepted the gloves and tugged them on, taking the excuse she was so readily offered to stick around. She’d observe for now. See how Nana treated her son and how they interacted. If needed, she’d have to step in and get someone to teach Nana how to be the parent she’d been so obviously ill-equipped to be. 

If Nana couldn’t, (or wouldn’t), learn from her then placing Tsunayoshi with another family would be the only other option. Because if Nana wasn’t going to treat her son the way he deserved to be treated… well she knew at least five families off the top of her head more than ready and willing to adopt a child. For his sake she hoped things wouldn’t progress that far. 

She’d hope and wish for the best… but she’d plan and prepare for the worst.

OoO

Walking home from school generated a lot less anxiety in him than Tsuna imagined it would have after getting attacked and kidnapped by a hitman. In all honestly, his classmates were scarier than the hitman had been. He had dealt with the hitman. He couldn’t do that with kids his age! Luckily most of his peers had better things to do than hang around waiting for him to pop back up out of hiding and he hadn’t spotted any more adults who showed any sort of interest in him. 

Yes, he was keeping a look-out for any suspicious adults, he wasn’t stupid! However, disregarding the kids his age… there was a distinct lack of threat to the air. 

Reaching up a hand to hook into the folds of his scarf, Tsuna brushed the gloved tips of his fingers against his flask, pushed it up and pressed his cheek into the warmth. No… it wasn’t that he didn’t feel threatened, he just knew that he could defend himself now without having to half-kill himself to do it. It all depended on how well prepared he was, but as long as he was never caught without a supply of flames ready on hand…

A good half of the tension he’d been living with for the last few years felt like it had evaporated and the sheer weight that took off of his shoulders was unbelievable. Ever since the day his flames had been cut off from him he’d been quietly freaking out in the back of his head, instinctively knowing that something irreplaceable had been taken from him, something that had left him utterly helpless. He’d gained it back, or at least a small measure of it. It felt like he’d found a key to the chains holding him down. They were still too heavy to lift off and he was still trapped in the ‘cage’ they made but he could now finally stretch his wings a little. A taste of freedom that he’d never have gotten, had he not been kidnapped. 

He’d been so stubbornly fixated on ripping at the seal that he hadn’t even considered the flame-saturated tea might serve another purpose. It had literally taken a life or death situation to get himself to switch mental gears. Now that he’d thought it though… perhaps he could figure out an easier, less conspicuous way of carrying around his tea, perhaps he didn’t even have to infuse his flames into tea. Right now it was the most convenient but were there other liquids out there that held the flame better than tea did? Could he infuse his tea with the same sparkles that had healed him so quickly? Just in case he needed to heal himself? If so, then one day he wouldn’t have to sit somewhere quiet to concentrate… ah. But then again there was the allure. He didn’t want to end up dog-piled under a group of admirers if he could help it.

Well then. He knew what ‘project’ he was going to work on next. He’d work on most pressing one. He was going to get that allure under control. Without people bothering him he’d be free to work on everything else he had going on and he had a LOT to work on. The moment he came up with one idea another one popped up. It was a good thing he’d taken to writing all the ideas down in a notebook, he became alarmingly forgetful when he let his flames run low. If anyone found it he could claim he was coming up with an idea for a story and it would be easier than anything to destroy it, he’d pay to see someone return ash to its former state without magic.

“Take THAT!”

Tsuna startled and caught his flask against his chest as it tumbled out of his grip, having been jolted out when he jumped at the sound of his mother’s raised voice. He’d actually lost himself to his own thoughts and relaxed enough that he’d even stopped looking around for potential danger. That was a dangerous mental place to be in! When had he let his guard down? Was his mother in trouble? She sounded like she’d just HIT someone! Sprinting the rest of the distance home, (which wasn’t very far, he really had fallen into a kind of auto-pilot hadn’t he?) Tsuna pulled himself around the open gate.

And promptly tripped over a loose stack of ripped up cardboard box pieces. 

At least the landing was a soft one, he merely tumbled across the piled up cardboard and skidded across to the grass when the boxes shifted under his weight. His flask flipped out of his hands and bounced off his mother’s foot, making her turn away from the figure she was facing and in his direction. Tsuna stared at his mother in confusion, far from being any danger she actually looked like she had been having FUN and her face was brightly lit up with an ear to ear grin.

“Tsu-kun~! Welcome home~! Look what I got for you!”

Picking himself up off the grass Tsuna shrugged his backpack off and slid it across the veranda, pushing it up against the sliding glass doors so he wouldn’t forget to bring it inside later. He padded over to where he’d dropped his flask and picked it up, staring at the thing his mother had ‘gotten’ for him. It was a blue and black man-shaped dummy. An electronic one, with flashing lights for where it’s eyes and mouth should be and several more lights around its ‘body’. Or rather there were two of the dummies, there was another one not too far away, out of range of the one his mother was playing with.

“… It’s… three times my size.” He mumbled, hugging his flask to him as he stared up and up at the intimidating thing.

“You’ll grow!” his mother chirped, sweeping him up off his feet and propping him up on her hip for a cuddle. 

“Why did you get two?” he asked.

“One is for me and one is for you.”

Tsuna bit his lip against a grin, they could have shared one but instead she’d gotten two. Of course his mother was going to go overboard, she always did when she found something she liked, especially if it was something his father had suggested. It probably hadn’t been his father’s suggestion this time though, she only ever did things like this whenever his father had been gone a while, was she lonely? 

“Thank you mama, I… like it… very much.” Tsuna smiled crookedly, leaning forward to press a kiss to her cheek even as he wondered what was he going to DO with the thing. It was MUCH too big for him to use just yet, its waist stood higher than his hair did! 

Whatever. It was the thought that counted.

OoO

Hibari Minoru studiously ignored the stare that was trying to bore holes into the side of his head as he sorted through the various files on his desk. He was more than used to that particular stare and it had about as much effect on him as a stray breeze. He knew Kyouya was trying to copy his father’s death-stare… but it fell short. Really short. It fell so far from the mark that it almost worked. Not because it was intimidating him into doing what he wanted, instead it nearly worked because it was almost too adorable to bear.

What was Kyouya even doing lurking around the office? He should be out finding new ways to drive the officers assigned to ‘Kyouya Watch’ insane… from the outside of the station. At this time of day he should have been either at home watching his videos or prowling around Namimori searching for potential ‘herbivores’ to ‘bite to death’. Kyouya never willingly spent time in the police station regardless of how familiar he’d gotten with everyone through his ‘Extracurricular Activities’. 

Kyouya kicked his chair.

Very deliberately ignoring the action, Minoru made a great show of turning the page of the report he was reading. That was not the kind of behaviour he was ever going to reward with attention, although if Kyouya did that ONE more time he was going to earn himself a stay in his ‘time out’ chair.

Almost as if he sensed that he was getting close to crossing the unspoken line his loving uncle had set, Kyouya hiffed, grumbled and stalked off. Minoru spared a quick glance to the boy’s retreating form, giving up so easily? It wasn’t like him... then again he was probably off to find someone who would actually fold into giving him what he wanted.

Minoru watched him disappear into the break room out of the corner of his eye as he sorted through the materials on his desk but then stopped to frown at the report in his hands. The results of the gunshot residue test had come back for the man’s clothes. Positive on the clothes the man had been wearing. The man HAD shot the gun he’d been wielding and the residue had all been fresh. It was clear that the gun had been shot well within the time-frame of Tsunayoshi’s kidnapping.

On top of the kidnapping and assault charges there was no way the man was ever going to see the outside of a prison ever again. The weapons charges alone would make sure of that. Then there was the discovery of new evidence that had surfaced recently, from an ‘anonymous’ tip that had come from a local payphone. A bag full of weapons left in a public park? It didn’t take a genius to connect the bag with the gunman caught the other day. A gun, several changes of clothes, bullets and a knife. When dusted for fingerprints, they had matched the only criminal in Namimori caught with a gun.

Tsunayoshi’s fingerprints or DNA hadn’t been found on any of the things that had been recovered from the park but… a bag full of important evidence being discovered so soon after his release from hospital? There was no way it was a coincidence, the boy knew more than he was sharing and while there was no PROOF of it, he’d probably touched everything in that bag. Had probably even handled a gun that could very well have gone off; it had been loaded when they had found it!

Minoru lowered the report back onto his desk, frowning heavily. The sheer amount of danger Tsunayoshi had, (presumably), put himself in… 

“Minoru Oji-san.”

Startled Minoru looked up and stared at his nephew, eyes wide and completely distracted by the sound of his nephew’s voice and, (semi-polite!), form of address. Was he dreaming? Had his nephew actually acknowledged him as his uncle?

Straightening up, Minoru gave him his full attention.

“What is it Kyouya?” 

The boy grimaced and dropped something onto his desk, Minoru had to react fast to stop it rolling off and onto the floor. 

An apple.

Forcing himself not to twitch Minoru set the offering on his desk. “... don't think I don't know you're still calling me a herbivore by giving me an APPLE but I accept your apology.” He said, calling the boy out on his not-so-subtle insult. “Where did you get that from anyway? Steal it from the break room?”

Kyouya scowled and pointed in the direction of the group of women cooing at him from the doorway of said room, glare slipping into offended dignity at the accusation. Kyouya folded his arms and turned away from him, punctuating the action with an indignant snort. Right, he’d forgotten. The little brat had half the office either wrapped around his little finger and the rest of it bent under his thumb. He didn’t have to steal anything, all he had to do here was crook a finger and people would just give him what he wanted. 

Spoiled. Little. Monster. Too cute by half, even with the glare… or was it because of the glare?

Struggling to keep his face straight and maintain the unimpressed expression on his face Minoru dragged the silence out, even as he felt his face twitch with the effort. He was one of the only people in his nephew’s life that didn’t automatically give in to whatever the little beast wanted and he was not going to make this that easy for him. 

Especially with the heavily-implied insult delivered at the same time as the apology.

“… my apologies for the accusation. Do continue though, what is it you want, Kyouya?” he asked clearly, arching a challenging eyebrow at the nine year old. He knew the deal by now; if he wanted something from his ever-patient, loving and Nurturing-Of-Human-Interactions uncle he was going to have to verbalize it.

Kyouya cut off a tsk, (moderating his mannerisms for what had to be the first time in years!), and looked like he was actually fighting the, insanely adorable, glare off his face. It wasn’t working. 

“The… boy. That was here. Before. His name. What is it?” he bit out, gritting his teeth as if each word was being forcibly pried from his mouth.

Kyouya actually showing interest in someone other than himself? Minoru almost wanted to go to the window to check for flying pigs. There had to be a catch, wait-- Kyouya couldn’t be thinking to…

“You are NOT going to bite him, Kyouya! He’s two years younger than you and he’s injured! Don’t think I won’t tell your parents if you try anything…” Minoru started to warn him but cut himself off.

Kyouya had tempered his behaviour and had actually verbalized a question. Had even tried to be polite. Had put more effort into being polite for this one exchange than he’d had in the last years’ worth of interaction… and he had the colouring book he’d shared with Tsunayoshi tucked under an arm. His nephew wasn’t looking for a ‘herbivore’ to ‘bite’. He was looking for a friend he might have made, quite possibly the only child around his age that could look him in the eye without flinching. 

Could he really discourage this kind of attitude? When it was such a drastic step forward? 

Minoru pushed his chair back as he got up and reached for his jacket, shrugged it on and opened his desk drawer. He retrieved the box of colour pencils Kyouya had shared with his ‘friend’ and handed it over to his nephew. Any kind of healthy interaction with another child would only be good for him. He knew all too well the kind of trouble Kyouya was having in making friends, he’d seen it growing up. His brother Satoshi had had the exact same problem. It came part and parcel with having inherited the ‘Natural Glare’ of the Hibari family. 

Ruffling his nephew’s hair as he passed by, Minoru turned to smirk down at the confused boy.

“Well? Are you coming?”

“… where?” Kyouya asked, grumpily pushing the hand off his head and frowning up at him with the most adorably confused expression on his face that Minoru had ever seen on him.

“I have this case I’m working on, a kidnapping case. I need to ask the victim a few more questions… want to come?” he said, knowing that his nephew had pieced together at least that much from the interview he’d accidentally eavesdropped on.

Kyouya’s eyes widened.

Snickering at the expression Minoru couldn’t resist ruffled his nephew’s hair again as he continued on, leading the way to the lifts. “His name is Sawada Tsunayoshi and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind having a few visitors.”

Kyouya fell into step beside him.

Minoru tilted his head to the side as something occurred to him and looking down at his nephew as the lift doors closed in on them, affixing the boy with a serious look. 

“You’re not allowed to bite his mother either.”

OoO

Rin silently watched from the doorway as Sawada Nana tried to coax her son into punching the martial arts dummy she’d bought. The woman had pulled out the pair of children’s gloves she’d shoved in a pocket earlier and ‘helped’ the bemused looking seven-year-old pull them on, replacing the woolen ones he’d been wearing. 

Well, there was one thing that hadn’t changed from the interaction she’d witnessed at the hospital, the genuine love and affection Tsunayoshi felt for his mother. What had changed was in how much more at ease with himself the brown haired boy looked, now that he was in his own ‘territory’. He was relaxed, completely relaxed in a way he hadn’t ever been during his entire stay at the hospital. Her mental image of him at the moment was that of a sweetly loving kitten twining around his mother’s ankles for attention and just one pet shy of purring. 

It would have been a heart-melting scene to witness had she not had suspicions lurking in the back of her mind. 

Using the excuse of using the bathroom to ‘freshen up’ after her ‘bout’ with Slam-kun, Rin hadn’t been able to help herself, she’d had to see if she could spot anything that would confirm any of those suspicions. The inside of the house matched what she’d observed of the outside, there wasn’t any evidence of child-proofing whatsoever. The medicine cabinet… was a horror story all on its own. How did Tsunayoshi even function day-to-day taking that much medication? Was it all even necessary? Also there wasn’t even a LOCK on the cabinet door! There was even a child’s step-ladder sitting just under the sink that would give the boy access to everything inside!

Nana’s heart looked like it was in the right place… but her head wasn’t where it was supposed to be, nowhere near it.

“No, not like that! You’ll break your thumb if you punch someone like that! Like this, see? Put your thumb on the outside of your fist.”

“Like this?”

“Yup, that’s perfect! Now come here for a bit…” Nana scooped Tsunayoshi off of his feet again, (having set him down to help him put his gloves on), and redeposited him on the veranda. “There, not so much of a height difference now is there?” she asked, propping a hand on her hip. “Just one thing Tsu-kun, if an adult actually tries to attack you again, don’t try finding something to stand on. You hit right between the legs! Doesn’t matter if it’s a boy or girl, they’ll go down exactly the same way!”

Tsunayoshi was quiet for a moment before he coughed out a laugh into a gloved hand. “You’re the second person who told me that today.” He replied with a crooked little grin.

“Well it’s good advice!” Nana excused for herself as she moved the closest dummy closer to the veranda. “Who was it?”

“Saito-san, the librarian at school.”

“Hmm~ And how was school Tsu-kun? Did you have fun?”

Tsunayoshi scoffed a little and Rin could almost imagine the look on the boy’s face. “Oh yeah.” He replied, voice heavy with sarcasm. “Loads of fun.”

Sarcasm? In a seven-year-old? There had been none of this at the hospital! Tsunayoshi had been the very picture of the perfect patient, he’d been polite and well-mannered, almost to a fault! He must have felt too far out of his comfort zone, he wasn’t having any trouble letting his true personality shine through now. His mother didn’t seem to notice or catch the hidden meaning either, she either wasn’t working with a full set of marbles or was she just ignoring it. Whichever it was, it was a clear mark against her. 

Rin almost wanted to stay hidden to watch more but she’d already been ‘in the bathroom’ for about as long as it was considered polite. Maybe Tsunayoshi would be more trusting now that he was out of the hospital and home? This WAS his ‘safe haven’. 

… or she hoped it was.

Stepping out of the house into plain view she slipped a warm smile on her face and went out to greet him, keeping her voice soothing and relaxed. “Good afternoon Tsunayoshi-kun.”

He reacted like she’d hit him with cold water.

He smacked the martial arts dummy he’d been tentatively swatting at away from him, jerking in surprise and accidentally making the thing sway back violently before crashing back forward. Tsunayoshi tripped over his own feet trying to avoid the expected clash and tumbled off the veranda. He was up on his hands and knees in a split second and was staring at her with his eyes wide and panting in fright, his little hands clenched anxiously over his heart.

Rin’s felt her own heart break into tiny little pieces at the reaction. She hadn’t meant to-- god, the poor thing! She wanted to rush over, pick him up and soothe away the fear but when she took that first step, the boy scrabbled to his feet and was hiding behind the dummy as it swung upright before she could start to. 

Getting down to his level, she folded down to the grass on her knees and looked him straight in the eyes, knowing that if she tried to brush this over and pretend it had never happened she’d lose a lot of credibility in his eyes. She had to earn his trust and that meant acknowledging his fears, (when he displayed them like this), and taking them seriously. If she was right, (and there wasn’t really much doubt after the interviews she’d already had with him), Tsunayoshi didn’t have a lot of experience with adults taking him seriously at all.

“I am very sorry for startling you Tsunayoshi-kun, your mother was kind enough to let me use the bathroom after we had a bit of fun with Slam-kun here.” She said, tapping the plastic figure he was peering at her from behind with a light touch. “Can you tell me what frightened you so much?”

Tsunayoshi’s cheeks darkened in a shame-faced flush as he pressed bodily into the practice dummy, “You just… startled me.” He mumbled slowly, looking like he might be a little dazed from the fall.

Rin had to forcefully clench her hands into her lap to keep herself from just bundling him up into a reassuring hug. Instead, she pushed herself up from the grass and gently reached forward, making sure her hands were well within view. “Here, let’s brush you off a little, you’re covered in dirt.”

Tsunayoshi swayed, it was the only warning she got before he started to crumple to the ground. Panicking, Rin floundered for a moment, catching him before he could hit the ground and remembered. Narcolepsy. She’d looked up a little bit on the condition when she’d heard he suffered from the condition. Sudden bouts of sleepiness, usually brought on by stress or excessive external stimuli and most commonly paired with Cataplexy, which was the abrupt and temporary loss of muscular function bought on by the same.

“Oh dear,” Nana murmured, reaching around her as she knelt down to relieve Rin of her sudden burden. “I was hoping to teach him a bit more today…” the brown haired woman sighed and got to her feet, easily lifting her son up. “Guess it’s time for a nap.”

Stepping into the house via the balcony doors Nana set him on the couch, slipped a pillow under his head and tucked a nearby blanket around his small form. 

“You’re not going to put him into bed?” Rin asked as she followed, slipping out of her shoes again and leaving them outside on the veranda.

“If he doesn’t wake up by the time dinner is ready I will, but he doesn’t usually stay down for long.” Nana replied as she leaned back to admire her handiwork, brushing the boy’s hair out of his face. “So restless for someone who sleeps so much.”

Rin felt her insides twist. Restless. That was exactly the word she would use to describe him too, as well as anxious and afraid. Of what, she didn’t know… Yet. It was as clear as day that Sawada Tsunayoshi wasn’t afraid of his mother; the source of his anxiety had yet to be determined. 

Was this a new thing? A reaction to his kidnapping or was this an issue that reached further back into the family history? Right now she would give anything to see how the boy reacted to his father, or to spend just five minutes alone with the man with no witnesses. She’d have settled for that.

If nothing else she could continue interviewing Nana, she had freed up her whole afternoon for this, and she wasn’t going to waste it.

OoO

The trip down the elevator, out of the police office and even in the car on the way over to the Sawada household was quiet. It was also (barring everything from before Jurassic Park had happened), the most well-behaved moment of Kyouya’s life. 

He wanted to give him every bit of advice he could think of, advice Kyouya had probably heard (and ignored) before but he couldn’t help it. This was the very first time Kyouya had shown any sort of interest in his own species, he wanted things to go right. There were times he opened his mouth to give his nephew some advice, wanting to remind him that social etiquette wasn’t exactly optional on this particular encounter, but he clicked his mouth shut.

He did not want to wind Kyouya up before meeting a probable friend. That way lay potential for disaster, disaster that Kyouya didn’t exactly need help in creating. He was a walking disaster all on his own. At least, when it came to making friends.

Minoru watched him warily out of the corner of his eye, careful to keep most of his attention on the road as he drove and made no sign that he was even watching his nephew. His sister in law had once sat him and his brother down and warned them about what a child of hers could end up being like before she’d even agreed to marry into the family. 

They hadn’t gotten the energetic child, or the expected calm and collected one. They’d ended up with Kyouya, the anti-social personality Yun had warned them might be a possibility in a child of hers. The violent streak? That had been the thing that had caught them all off guard.

Yun took it all in stride though, surprised but not at all confused by her son’s behaviour whenever he did something that was out of the norm for a regular child, instead she further warned him and his brother to be on the watch for any change in behaviour. Namely an upswing in the level of violence out of proportion to the level he’d shown so far and to make sure he never fixated on one particular ‘annoyance’ at a time. 

They’d had to watch him like hawks.

What had Yun called it? That special ability of hers? The one that she’d said Kyouya had inherited and would one day exhibit? The one that had once made her so valuable to the Chinese Triad? It had something to do with death… oh. Right.

Flames of Death Perception. 

He couldn’t even begin to understand how it had all worked, didn’t even want or have to. All he knew was that one day Kyouya would begin to exhibit signs of having inherited the same ability and they’d all have to keep a strict lookout. Yun had been clear in warning them about what would happen to Kyouya if he used that ability without the proper training. 

Kyouya would end up either burning, breaking or accidentally killing himself without careful supervision. Then there was the condition she called 'Discord', Yun had given them a list of other names as well, but they all meant the same thing. Insanity had been the kindest out of all them.

Yun had said Kyouya would begin to exhibit signs of his flames becoming ‘Useful’ in his teenage years, a year or so earlier if they were ‘lucky’. Perhaps even younger if he was ever caught in a life or death situation. Which was another reason they’d all been watching Kyouya like hawks, Minoru even had a few of his co-workers in on keeping an eye on him but they just thought he was trying to keep his nephew in control; they’d never know how right they were.

Kyouya hadn’t been anywhere near an accident that he hadn’t caused. There had been no signs of an upswing in violence. Yun had said not to expect large amounts of affection from their son, that he’d be quite firmly introverted. That was fine. Their father had been exactly the same way, it seemed to run in the family.

His sister-in-law had never said what to do in the event Kyouya did exactly the opposite of what she’d been warning them might happen. He hadn’t yet had the chance to show Yun the copy of the video Kiriyama Toshiya had given him or the photos he’d taken that day; he’d been too swamped with work. 

He wondered what she’d make of the situation, Kyouya suddenly going sweet on someone? Was the sky falling? The ocean burning? Was the world ending? If he hadn’t been watching out for any sign of Kyouya falling into dangerous behavioral patterns he’d have found the whole thing extremely amusing. 

Finally arriving at the Sawada residence, Minoru turned his attention away from his nephew for the moment and parked the car across the road from the house. He quirked an eyebrow at the short stack of cardboard piled up in the gateway and unbuckled his seat-belt. 

“Remember, no biting.” He said, reaching over to unbuckle the boy from his own seat. “I don’t care how annoyed you are, I won’t let it slide this time. Try ANYTHING and you’ll be grounded for the rest of the year.”

Kyouya scowled at him but said nothing; Minoru took that as agreement and opened the door. 

Unseen by Minoru, Kyouya’s eyes widened as a faint warmth wafted into the car through the open door, hesitating briefly he shook his head and reached for the handle of the door on his side of the car. Frowning curiously at the sensation, he absently slid out of the car.

Before Minoru even realized he’d moved, Kyouya was already across the road and was halfway through the gate of the house that had caught his eye.

“Kyouya! What are you doing? You can’t just barge in!” 

Minoru might as well have been speaking to the wind, Kyouya ignored him as if he hadn’t heard him and side-stepped the pile of cardboard boxes with an awkward looking shuffle. Was Kyouya wobbling?

“Hey, what’s wrong with you?" Minoru asked, catching up to him and fighting down internal alarm as Kyouya stared blankly at the garden with half-lidded eyes. Placing a steadying hand on his nephew’s shoulder, he caught the swaying nine-year-old as he listed sideways trying to turn around. 

“Easy, I’ve got you.” Minoru soothed as he steadied his nephew, crouching down to curl an arm around him as he slumped in his grasp. Leaning Kyouya against a shoulder, he pressed a hand to his nephew’s forehead. He wasn’t burning up, he was as cool to the touch as he always was but… why was his face flushed? 

Catching sight of the interior of the house from the balcony doors, he stared at the head of brown hair just peeking out from under a pile of blankets on a couch and sighed. It was a pity but Kyouya was just going to have to visit another time, even if he hadn’t suddenly fallen sick... his potential friend was asleep and no one else was in view. 

Scooping him up into his arms, Minoru hesitated for a moment before shaking his head at his own indecision. “Let’s get you home.” He murmured to his armful, he was going to take his nephew home. It wasn’t like he could, (or even would), impose on Sawada Nana, not with the suspicions he had about exactly what kind of mother SHE made. He was going to take Kyouya home to his own mother like he should have done in the first place, this wasn’t the expected violence but this was certainly note-worthy behaviour. 

Returning back to the car he’d only just left, Minoru cracked a grin and couldn’t help but let a bewildered laugh escape him as Kyouya growled drunkenly in protest to being put back in the car. He carefully made sure his nephew was all the way inside with no stray limbs in danger of being squashed by the door as he closed it and rounded the bonnet to reclaim his own seat, reaching around to secure Kyouya back into his seat-belt.

“You shouldn’t growl at me Kyouya, I’m just trying to help you.” He replied, trying not to find it quite so funny as he buckled the nine-year-old in. Kyouya wasn’t even ATTEMPTING to fight the restraints, the only time he got like this was when he was seriously under the weather. Squashing down the sick feeling of worry in his gut Minoru ignored the voice of guilt inside him that was telling him he should have noticed this earlier, if something was wrong with Kyouya as a result of his inattention… 

Kyouya bit his hand. 

Or at least he tried to, instead of the punishing full-force of one of the nine-year old’s infamous bites Minoru snorted at the soft gnaw he got instead, a gnaw that stopped as his nephew fell asleep mid-chew. How had he just not realized Kyouya was so under the weather at the office? He should have, the only time Kyouya acted so out of character was when he was sick. 

“Why did you have to be so cute?” he asked his unconscious nephew as he started the car. “I hope you realize that you’re the reason I am never having kids.”

OoO

Hibari Yun smiled idly to herself as she made her way back home, shopping bags in hand, hopefully she had everything Satoshi and Minoru needed for dinner. They had been rather stressed out lately and she didn't want to make life more difficult for them by getting the wrong things. Maybe she should cook tonight? The boys had been running themselves ragged lately with that horrible case with that disgustingly amateur rookie hitman.

What was one of those western pups even doing in Japan, in Namimori of all places? Had he been here for her? He had abducted a child though, had he been planning on targeting her son and had gotten the wrong child? Perhaps she should pay him a visit in his cell… 

No, that would just upset Satoshi.

Sighing at the idea as she arrived home she noted the cars in the driveway. Good, Satoshi and Minoru must already be home, that meant Kyouya was either home himself or not too far away. Letting herself into the house Yun slipped her shoes off, setting her shopping down so she could put them away but paused in the act. 

Kyouya was home, his little sneakers were left in the entry way, but that wasn’t what made her stop. Putting her own shoes away, Yun bent down to pick up her son’s sneakers, angling the left one so the object that had caught her attention was clearly visible.

A single petal, half crushed and stuck to the side of her son’s shoe.

“Kyouya?” Yun called into the house, delicately peeling the petal stuck to her son’s shoe off and letting it fall into her palm, feeling the hair on her arms rise a little as it landed. “Where are you?”

“He’s in here!” her husband’s voice called from the living room, voice light with humour. She let her feet guide her there, abandoning the groceries as she brushed a tentative touch to the soft yellow petal.

Where had it come from? It was beautiful.

“Kyouya hasn’t been anywhere… strange today, has he?” Yun asked distractedly as she stepped into the room, still absently petting the petal her son had half crushed. Such a lovely yellow colour. Daisy? No, the petal was the wrong shape, maybe a sunflower…

“He came to visit me at the station today.” Minoru answered wryly from where he was sitting at the kotatsu.

Yun sighed, really when was Kyouya going to learn? If you were going to testing your strength on random people at least make sure you weren’t going to get caught! Just like his father, no subtlety whatsoever!

“… willingly.” Minoru finished, putting down the file he was sorting through and catching her eye, making sure he had her attention. “He actually came in and asked me to help him make a friend... just not directly.”

“It’s the Yamamoto boy, isn’t it? He wouldn’t be interested in the Sasagawa children, they’re too weak to catch Kyouya’s interest.” She asked as she knelt down to peer over her husband’s shoulder to where her son was napping in his father’s lap.

Kyouya was finally showing signs of his flames starting to mature. Flame Attraction at nine years old? His flames were going to be strong when they finally shifted to Useful. If Kyouya was ever going to ‘make friends’ with anyone, it was going to be with another Flame Active. Kyouya wouldn’t settle for making friends with a Null.

Satoshi and her brother-in-law stared.

“What?” she asked as she sat down, letting the petal she’d been holding slip onto the table’s surface. “It’s nothing to be worried about, it’s normal. He’s around the right age for this.”

“It’s not-- the boy he’s ‘interested’ in, his name is Sawada Tsunayoshi.” Minoru said, handing her a photograph from the file he’d been looking at.

Taking it Yun stared down at it and tilted her head, frowning. This was the child Kyouya had taken an interest in? Something about the boy’s face was nagging at her. Messy brown hair that begged to be brushed, innocent, chocolate-brown doe eyes and sweetly plump cheeks… Something was familiar about that face though, where had she seen it before? She knew she’d seen it somewhere but she just couldn’t pin down where...

“You won’t believe this.” Satoshi added, passing her a packet of photographs. “It’s like he doesn’t even care Kyouya was glaring at him almost the whole time.”

A series of photographs of the brown haired boy with her son. Sharing a colouring book and talking normally, not a frown or glare in sight. There was even a small smile on Kyouya’s face in one shot, carefully hidden from the boy he colouring with but not from the camera. Even more alarming was the brown haired boy’s facial expressions. 

“How did they meet?” she heard herself ask as she pawed through the photographs her husband had given her, zeroing in on the boy’s body-language. He didn’t look threatened at ALL.

“I’ve got a video too!” Minoru added

“Show me.” She demanded, straightening up like a shot, instantly distracted from her analysis. A picture might be worth a thousand words but being able to see the interaction for herself would be worth a whole lot more.

The recorded moment would have been heart-warming and adorable… had she not been a Flame User. 

The hair on the back of Yun’s neck stood on end.

When Minoru went to turn the television off she snatched the remote control out of his hands and rewound the video, focusing on the strange boy that had so captured her son’s attention. That was not normal. That was nowhere NEAR normal. 

“You said the boy’s name was Sawada?” she clarified, watching the meeting between her son and the strange boy over and over again, looking for anything that might give away that he was somehow manipulating her son.

Because there was no sign of any sort of intimidation there whatsoever, nothing in the brown haired boy’s body-language or words to even indicate he was feeling the least of it, instead the boy in the video looked unnaturally calm. He wasn’t in the least bit threatened, even from his seat in what looked like a wheelchair and freshly released from hospital. That just didn’t happen. If she hadn’t had solid proof it had happened in the first place she wouldn’t have believed it. The normal reaction, had Sawada Tsunayoshi been a Null, would have been the opposite of what was in the child’s body language. Hell, even another Flame Active would have felt threatened, her son’s flame was already so strong that he dwarfed other Flame Active children in his generation. 

Kyouya had manifested a Classic Cloud Flame, (they were always aggressively introverted and solitary), that meant that anyone with half a brain or sense of self-preservation would avoided catching his attention, it was all instinctive. A Cloud, (especially a Classic one!), only ever responded to Sun Flames unless tricked somehow, if her son was being messed with…

There was a Mist in Namimori with the same surname, was this the woman’s son? She’d seen the woman before, (it was hard to miss someone so tangled up in their own flames), had the woman’s son inherited her Affinity? Mist was essentially a low flying cloud in actual real world terminology. A Classic Mist was everything a Classic Cloud saw in themselves and hated, without some sort of manipulation going on there her son’s knee-jerk reaction to being confronted with an Active Mist SHOULD have been a lot less adorable to the uninformed.

If Sawada Tsunayoshi had inherited his mother’s Affinity, (if she was indeed the boy’s mother), then was he actually using said Flames to mess with Kyouya in any way? If he was…

“Can you pass him here for a moment?” Yun asked, setting the remote control down and shuffling over to where her son was snuggled up on his father’s lap, reaching for him.

“He’s being a bit of a snuggle-bug right now, wish he’d be like this more often without being sick.” Satoshi remarked, helping her gather her son up.

“Little monster.” Minoru muttered as he went back to his work, worries set aside now that she’d set them to rest.

Smoothing a hand over her son’s hair she gave him a thorough look-over, being careful not to alert her husband and brother-in-law about her worries. She got up to her feet and bundled Kyouya up into her arms. “I’ll put him to bed, he should be fine in the morning.” She said with false cheer. They’d believe her, they knew her ‘Powers’ extended to ‘healing’.

Tucking her son’s head under her chin as she walked, she soothed a hand through his lovely hair and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

Kyouya was Flame Drunk.

Kyouya was Flame Drunk and she was going to KILL the little shit-stain who thought testing his flames on her son was a fun thing to try. She hadn’t spent these last few years stressing, watching her son’s every step, coaching her family in how to raise a Flame Active and wearing herself down to a thread just to have an out-of-control Mist ruin all her hard work.

There weren’t any traces of Mist Flame in his system, (and there wouldn’t be, it didn’t take much to get a child Flame-Drunk), and there weren’t any on his clothes either. Kyouya was only nine years old and his system was still oh-so-delicate, it was the reason why they were all keeping such a hawk-like watch on him. If this new ‘friend’ of his was pushing his flame on him for whatever reason and damaged Kyouya in any way, (deliberately or not), she was going to end it. Her son was NOT going into Discord. Not now, not ever.

She was a Sun. It was her duty and it would be her downright pleasure to burn away the fumbling little Mist messing with her baby.

Tucking her son into bed, she pressed a goodnight kiss to his forehead and returned to the living room, casually picking up the petal that had so caught HER attention earlier and slipped it into a pocket. It had to be emitting some kind of flame. The flame itself was too weak to really pin down an Attribute but was it really hard to guess what Flame it was saturated in?

“What kind of boy is this Sawada boy?” she asked lightly as she picked up one of the photographs her husband was still looking through, easily keeping the glare off her face.

Minoru snorted, “He’s a wary little thing, but he’s a sweet boy. Very polite. He’ll be a good influence on Kyouya.”

Yun hummed, the tone modulated to sound neither agreeing nor disagreeing. She’d be the judge of that. She’d do it now in fact, she had the perfect excuse for it, she’d left the shopping in the hallway.

“I’ll go get the things for dinner. I meant to go earlier but got distracted.” She lied, getting to her feet and letting herself out of the room. “I’ll be right back, it won’t take long.”

“Late dinner, guess we’ll be waiting on Kyouya to wake up then.” Satoshi remarked from behind the file he was looking over, unsuspecting of her intentions.

Yun smiled in agreement and left the room, sliding the door shut behind her and padding quietly through the corridor to where she’d left the shopping, silently scooping it up and taking it with her outside. Leaving the bags out of sight in a bush, she headed to the address she’d seen on the file Minoru was working on; luckily it wasn’t too far away.

She was a few houses away when she felt it, the barely-there presence of flames. They were so weak she had only really sensed them because she’d been looking for it, but the closer she got to the Sawada residence the stronger they felt. They were soft, with just the barest hint of heat, the faintest touch that could easily be mistaken for a breath of warm air and… it really was coming from the flowers.

Spread out across several homes along the street were sunflowers. If she hadn’t seen what they were doing to her son she’d have been tempted to steal a few to take home with her. Clicking her tongue in annoyance, Yun stalked for the house with the tall cement wall surrounding it and nearly bit her tongue as she rounded the gate. She’d intended on letting herself in. On going straight into the house and dealing with the conniving little Mist in his own home. 

Instead was caught flat-footed at the sight that greeted her.

The flowers in the walled-off garden weren’t glowing with Mist Flames as she’d assumed they would be. They were sitting in the shade of the wall so there was really no mistaking the faint glow coming off all the plants in the garden. At a casual glance you could blame the faint touch of flame dusting the large and robust flowers on the burgeoning sunset and fading light, thinking that the faint blush of orange on yellow petals was natural. 

It wasn’t. The colour didn’t come from a Mist Flame either.

Not indigo. Orange.

Yun felt her knees go a little weak as the implications hit her. Orange. Orange meant… Oh. The Sawada boy wasn’t a… no. Okay. She had to check. There was no way she’d be this lucky. She had found the love of her life, she had beautiful family and they were all healthy.

She hadn’t even considered the possibility, it was too rare! They were in Namimori for god’s sake! It was a small country town in the middle of nowhere! A Sky in Namimori? Not just a Sky but such a young one? A Sky young enough to… okay. She was not going to be making plans! Not until she was absolutely certain that was she was thinking… might actually be a possibility! This was the icing on the cake that was her life, her son wasn’t going to go down the same path she had, he wasn’t going to end up with a hitman’s instincts now! He’d have the chance to be a Guardia—No. The Sky who had infused the flowers with their Flames could be anyone, she was pinning her hopes on nothing. She wasn’t going to let herself be disappointed.

Taking a deep and steadying breath to calm her racing heart Yun scanned the garden and edged closer to the veranda so she could peek in through the window, (and consequently closer to the highly distracting patch of sunflowers. These ones had a stronger saturation than the ones in the neighboring gardens! So pretty!). 

Sawada Tsunayoshi was pushing himself up from the couch he’d been napping on, blinking sleepily and struggling to straighten himself up. Yun took one look at the boy’s eyes and beat a hasty retreat, vaulting straight over the wall to get away before she could be noticed, opting out of wasting time heading for the gate. Not stopping until she was home Yun sank down into a crouch near the bush she had hidden her groceries in and smothered a scream of joy into her shaking hands. 

Kyouya had found a Sky.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay. I had entirely too much fun writing this chapter, WAY too much fun. Aside from the brain-blanking moments, the ones that had me STARING at the screen for hours on end even though I knew what I wanted to write but the words weren’t coming… 
> 
> I was so far into Yun’s headspace that I was practically right there WITH her as her mental space SCRAMBLED. Sure she was excited as all hell but trying to get words out in that state is next to impossible. 
> 
> Bah. Stupid Yun. I hate the fact I love her so much.

Fighting the insanely tempting urge to just roll over and go back to sleep, Tsuna pushed the feeling aside and himself up. He couldn’t have been asleep for very long, it wasn’t fully dark outside and his stomach wasn’t complaining about the lack of food just yet. Shaking the cobwebs from his mind, he pressed a hand against his eyes and reached into himself, pulling up a bit of that oh-so-precious heat that would allow for clarity of thought to return. Something was bothering him and he wouldn’t know what that was until he could think clearly enough to process the emotion.

All he had to do was spark a bubble of flaring light into existence inside him and let it… pop!

Eyes snapped open as a wave of energy shot through his system like a mix of caffeine and sugar; suddenly he had more than enough energy to finish pushing himself up off the couch. He had to investigate the source of his unease, there was an unfamiliar voice coming from the kitchen, a voice that distinctly did NOT belong to his mother.

Reaching into his pocket Tsuna pulled out his flask and slowly unscrewed the lid, being careful not to make a single sound. He could always refill it later; right now, he had a feeling he was going to need to keep his wits about him. Taking a generous sip, he allowed himself to bask a little in the feeling of warmth spreading out inside him. He could never quite hold himself back from stopping a little and enjoying the sensation, it always felt like so much like of a treat. 

Sighing at the feeling, he slipped off the couch and crept soundlessly to where he heard the voice coming from and ended up outside the kitchen. Peering cautiously through the crack of the partially open door, Tsuna felt the intent expression on his face fall in dismay. His mother had a visitor: it was the social worker from the hospital. The same one who’d asked all those stupidly boring and seemingly pointless questions the whole time he’d been hospitalized. Hashimoto Rin, the woman who had also inadvertently startled him into ‘nap time’.

He’d been doing so well too; it had been quite a while since he’d reached for the flames under the seal out of genuine fear! He hadn’t done that for almost a half a year already! He hadn’t even done that when the hitman had kidnapped him, he’d willingly reached for the flames that time! The danger associated with just dropping where he was standing whenever he was startled had forced him to curb the knee-jerk reaction of reaching for his flames whenever he freaked out. 

The incident must have shaken him up more than he realized if he was jumping at nothing again. It was like he was five years old all over again! All those years of him teaching himself NOT to reach for the seal unless it was on PURPOSE and he did it the first time he let his guard down? All his hard work undone with one discovery. Not even a day since he’d discovered the ability to use his tea-flames and he’d fallen right back into old habits. 

It was stupid, not to mention embarrassing. On top of that, he was going to have to teach himself to reach for the flames already in his system. That should hopefully give the reflex a new target to latch onto.

Mortification flushed his face in a red blush that crept up to warm his ears as he cringed; so embarrassing. She might not know how hard he’d worked to gain that kind of control over himself but he damned well did! He may have been physically seven years old but he felt older than that, accidental magic wasn’t something he should still be doing! He might as well have peed himself; it was basically the same thing! Sure, the seal had stopped the outburst but what if it hadn’t? He capped his flask and slunk away from the partially open door, trying not to think about how badly he’d have been teased for such a slip-up had he been in the Magical World. 

He wasn’t about to willing to go into the kitchen and face the woman who’d both seen and caused the slip-up. He had better things to do. Tsuna retreated to fetch his backpack from the veranda with soft footsteps. He’d drop his stuff in his room, like hell he was going to volunteer for another of the woman’s stupid questions-game. He had a to-do list longer than his arm already, might as well scratch some of them off the list.

He could search the house while his mother was otherwise occupied, or at the very least her room. He could do the rest of the house at his leisure. He’d know when to stop too; his mother would call up the stairs for him when she found out he’d woken up. It would give him enough warning to slip back into his own room if he was caught half-way through searching. He could always slip into bed when he heard her coming up the stairs to check on him and he’d be able to duck meeting Hashimoto Rin the same way and pretend to be asleep.

He wouldn’t actually be getting any sleep tonight, much as he might actually want to. He’d just downed a hearty swig of his flame-tea and the bubble-burst of flame he’d just released into his system to wake himself up would last for hours, probably into the next morning. He would have to chase down the sparkles he’d released and snuff them out first if he wanted any rest. The ‘wake-up’ trick he’d learned was the second most useful thing he’d learned about his flames, right after the ability to heal himself. All that time in the hospital had been useful for that at least.

Another baby-step forward. At this rate it he’d actually be old enough for Hogwarts before he figured the intricacies of his flames. He still wasn’t anywhere near close to figuring out how to squash the naturally occurring sparkle in his flame, the best he could do was squash out the ones he made himself.

Padding softly up the stairs, Tsuna left his bag just inside the open doorway of his room and slipped into his mother’s room, keeping the door open behind him as he went in so he’d be able to hear if she called out for him. How long was Hashimoto going to stay? He couldn’t imagine what would have someone talking for so long; maybe his mother had been lonely for company? He’d noted it earlier when he’d come home and… Well, wasn’t that another reason to stay out of the way? His mother sounded like she was having fun talking to someone who was around the same age as her… though he wished she’d chosen someone else to make friends with. 

Like someone who hadn’t just seen witnessed him knock himself unconscious.

Or maybe he was just being petty there. It wasn’t like he’d never fainted before; this was just the first time he’d done it for quite a while. He’d get over the embarrassment. Eventually. The Social Worker might even end up becoming his mother’s friend. 

Yes, it might be awkward but he could live with it. Harry Potter had endured the Dursleys, at the very least HE should be able to do was put up with one overly-curious lady. 

His mother’s room was a simply decorated, the walls painted the same cream colour as the rest of the house. The bed sheets were a soft indigo colour, (her favourite), and the neat vanity table held only his mother’s make up and other odds and ends. It was the same with the bedside table. There was nothing under the bed, not even a stray dust-bunny. The floor didn’t feel loose anywhere and the soft taps he gave every inch of the carpeted floorboards showed they were all solidly in place. No suspiciously echo-y areas whatsoever.

Using the chair from the vanity table Tsuna searched through the dresser, starting from the top drawer and working his way down. He didn’t think he’d find anything on his mother’s ‘side’ of the room but he wasn’t about to just leave it unchecked. He could feel awful about invading his mother’s privacy later, but for now he could console himself in the fact he was only doing this for answers. How was he supposed to protect her if he didn’t know what he was protecting her from?

There had to be a clue somewhere in the house, there just had to be.

The dresser ended up having nothing save his mother’s clothing in it, even when he pulled out the last drawer and checked the space underneath it. Another dead end. The closet held nothing but clothes, both his mother’s and his father’s. It had a shelf at the top that would be impossible for him to reach right now, the bottom half was in reach though. A quick check through everything and Tsuna gave up on the closet, his mother kept his father’s clothes religiously clean. He didn’t even find anything in the pockets of the clothing he went through.

Digging into the back of the closet Tsuna felt around for any boxes in reach, anything he could get his hands on and found nothing. He was going to have to wait for another time to search the top half of the closet. He couldn’t even climb it, he’d probably kill himself trying! The shelves were too widely spaced apart, how annoying. 

Unable to think of anymore places in his mother’s room where he might be able to find anything else Tsuna left, if there had been anything suspicious there in the first place… wouldn’t his mother have said something? She was a meticulous house-keeper, she’d know if something was out of place… or would she? Tsuna sighed heavily as he left the room, she could have noticed something and mentioned it to his father and he’d have never known.

Pulling his flask out of his pocket Tsuna gave it a thoughtful look, weighing it in his hands. Would it be enough to keep his wits sharp about him as he prodded her for information? She never gave him a direct answer about anything and she liked playing tricks to boot. If she caught onto the fact he was actively prying for specific information she’d make a game out of it. He could almost feel a stress-induced headache start at the mere thought of it. He’d ask her later; word it so it sounded more like curiosity about the house itself. Maybe he could even play up to that, pretend he was curious about his oh-so-absent father. It wouldn’t be that much of a stretch, he WAS curious, just not about what a normal children his age would be curious about in their own fathers.

Now that he’d searched his mother’s room, as much as he was able to, he could search the rest of the house at his leisure. The next time his mother left to go shopping or something would be a good time to search the shelf he couldn’t reach just yet. He hated being short.

“Tsu-kun~ Did you go to sleep?”

Tsuna slipped into his room and shut the door behind him, leaving it only a little ajar as he crawled into bed fully dressed. All he had to do was play possum until his mother’s guest was gone. As he’d already expected, his mother waited for a reply before coming up the stairs; it gave him plenty of time to arrange the blankets into a nice, shielding cocoon. Tucked into the middle of the barrier of blankets it wasn’t hard to pretend to be asleep; hell, he was tempted to try and sleep for a bit now. Never mind the fact that he wouldn’t be able to catch a single wink with the sparkle-pop of flame still working.

“How did he get up here without us hearing him?” he heard Rin ask his mother as she followed his mother into the room. 

“He’s got cat feet.” His mother replied softly, giggling as she leaned over him to adjust a bit of blanket so she could kiss his cheek. “Already asleep? Too bad, Mama wanted to show you all the things she got for you~” 

Forcing himself not to twitch at the pout he could hear in his mother’s tone of voice, Tsuna firmly kept his eyes shut and his face pressed into his pillow. It was always easier to fake sleep if he was half buried in the thing; he only had to control the very small portion of his face that was visible. Damn his curiosity though, now he wanted to find out what she’d bought aside from the punching dummy. It had to be something interesting if she was this excited about it.

“Looks like I’m going to have to visit tomorrow then.” Rin sighed. 

“We’d love to see you again tomorrow!” His mother gushed excitedly, forgetting for a moment that she was trying to keep her voice down. Tsuna almost wanted palm his face, here he’d been hoping he’d have a bit of a break from the woman. At least he was going to get half a day to get over the embarrassment over his lapse in control.

“Then I’ll take my leave now, I have to visit the police station. I still have a few questions to ask the police.” Hashimoto Rin said somewhat flatly, like she was trying to keep her voice level. It was tempting to take a peek at her face but that might get him caught. What was up with that tone of voice?

“I’ll see you to the door.” His mother offered, apparently not hearing anything out of the ordinary.

He waited till his mother had closed the door before sitting himself up in bed and frowned, that had been… odd. What had the woman been looking at that would cause her to try and control her voice? There was nothing out of place in his room, it was pretty ordinary. Was she annoyed that she hadn’t gotten the chance to talk to him? That might be it. Adults got funny when things didn’t go the way they planned.

She didn’t seem like the type to give up though. Whatever, he’d deal with her like he did with all his other problems. 

One at a time.

OoO

Rin spent a long moment just staring at the Sawada residence from the driver’s seat of her car, fingers tapping the pen she was holding against the steering wheel with the file she was working on sitting on the passenger’s seat. 

That visit had brought up more questions than it had answered. 

Whatever she’d been expecting, that hadn’t been it. The house was clean and well-kept, sure it wasn’t childproof but that was something that would be rather simple to fix. She’d already suggested it to Nana and the woman had listened like this was the first time the idea had even occurred to her. She was very much the first time parent, one that hadn’t done her research on the topic. 

Everything Rin had brought up had been news to her and child-proofing had been the tip of the iceberg. Still, she’d been eager to learn more and Nana had even pulled out a notebook to start scribbling down notes. She even started another shopping list at one point. That kind of unprompted reaction was what every social worker dreamed of seeing in a parent, because ignorance was curable with the right application of knowledge. 

Nana hadn’t gotten defensive at all throughout the whole night, not even when Rin had slipped in the suggestions at improved parenting into the conversation. She’d taken in everything easily. There was no hostility at the idea Rin might be criticizing her parenting skills, no bristling at the ‘unwarranted’ advice. 

The whole visit had gone swimmingly… if you only looked at Nana’s side of the visit.

Sawada Tsunayoshi had jumped a mile when she’d startled him, hadn’t come into the kitchen when he’d woken up to see her and had instead slunk away like a terrified cat. He’d buried himself to sleep in a defensive little ball of blankets and his room looked bare to her. There were no visible toys, everything was neat and tidy. He didn’t even have a game or children’s book in sight.

Children were loud, curious and messy; it came with the territory. Tsunayoshi was the exact opposite of all of that. He was wary of her, that much was obvious. Was it all strangers or just the women? Was this a new thing or was this from the kidnapping? Were there adults in his life that Tsunayoshi DID trust aside from his mother? 

Maybe she needed to look into things a little more closely, lean in a little more stricter on the mother. Would Nana’s eager-to-learn attitude hold up under that kind of pressure? There had to be more to Tsunayoshi’s behaviour than just his kidnapping, as much as she wanted to think the woman had nothing to do with that… there was something there that just felt wrong about that visit. It wasn’t anything she could put her finger on at the moment but…

Tossing her pen and the notebook she was writing in onto the passenger’s seat with a huff of annoyance, Rin started the car; she wasn’t going to get her answers sat here staring at the house she’d just left and lurking outside the Sawada house wasn’t going to earn her any trust points with her young charge either. What if he woke up, looked out the window and spotted her staring at his house like a creeper after she’d ‘officially’ left? 

She couldn’t even go to the police station like she’d planned to. She’d wanted to question Detective Hibari further on what had made him make the call to Social Services. Hear it from the man himself instead of reading about it in a report. It was too late for that now though, she’d called the precinct and he’d already gone home for the night. She didn’t have his number either, she only realised she could have gotten it off the secretary after she’d already hung up. Not that she would disturb the man at this time of night for questions she could ask in the morning. 

Might as well go home. She could write up her report easier there than cramped into the front seat of her car.

OoO

Hibari Satoshi stared.

He knew he was a brilliant detective, his track record proved it. He had risen up through the ranks and had been made Namimori’s Chief of police in what others called ‘record time’. He’d solved numerous cases that had others scratching their heads. He was smart and he knew it. There was perhaps one person in the world whose thought process he couldn’t follow, (no matter how hard he tried), and he was constantly being caught off guard by her many and varied eccentricities.

“Yun… what are you doing?” he heard himself ask faintly, his brain trying to analyse the behaviour and come up with a plausible reason for why his wife was currently rocking back and forth on her heels in front of the house. With what looked like a load of shopping dumped into the bushes next to her.

“Eeeeiii~!” Yun squealed in answer, seemingly too far gone in glee to answer him.

He loved her, he truly did, but what hell kind of noise had THAT been? She was happy, not just happy but almost deliriously so. She was acting almost like she had been right after she’d given birth to Kyouya. 

Casually tucking his phone into his pocket, (he’d pulled it out to see what was taking her so long to pick up a few groceries), he fished the bag of groceries out of the bushes and gave it a casual glance. The temperature and feel of the block of butter she’d bought told him she’d lied oh-so-very-casually about forgetting the shopping and had ducked out for another reason. Now here she was an hour or so after she’d left to go ‘shopping’ and she was acting like the lunatic she’d become for the first week or so after their son’s birth.

Crouching down next to her, Satoshi hooked his arm into the loops of the plastic bag, tilted his head to the side view the face she was covering with her hands and reaching out to rub a reassuring hand on her back. “You’re alright?”

Yun nodded without moving the hands covering her face.

Good, at least he hadn’t read that wrong. What would get her to act like this again? Was she…“Are you pregnant again?” He asked, his heart skipping a beat at the idea. Could they deal with another child? His brain scrambled itself into mush at the idea: another baby. Oh god, what if they ended up with another Kyouya? They were already stretched thin enough as it was running after—

Yun shook her head in negative and Satoshi breathed out a sigh of relief even as he felt a small pang of regret at the response. Well, okay. What else would she be this excited about then? She’d practically scrambled her own brain with it and for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what else would do this to her. 

She was so excited she was shaking and incoherent with it.

Wrapping an arm around her shoulders he pulled her to him, his other arm coming up under the back of her legs to scoop her up off her feet. There was no way she was going to be able to move in the condition she was in at the moment; she was completely lost in her emotions. She was going to have to sit somewhere quiet for a while before she came back to herself enough to be able to vocalize what had put her in this state. Yun pressed her face into his shoulder and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck as he lifted her up, her hands bunching up the back of her shirt. 

Satoshi took care not to let her thick braid get caught on anything as he got her into the house and the living room where Minoru raised an eyebrow over his paperwork. 

“Can you get the groceries?” Satoshi asked, awkwardly shifting his burden so the plastic bag could be handed over. 

Minoru did as asked and then moved out of the way, peering curiously into the bag as he stepped past them and towards the kitchen to put them away in the fridge. “What happened?” he asked.

“No idea.” He answered truthfully. “Found her like this outside.”

He started a silent count in his head as the and kept his face straight as his mental count hit ten and his little brother other connected the same (incorrect) dots he had made outside. He heard Minoru drop the groceries he’d been about to pack away into the fridge and thunder out of the kitchen, past them again and into the bathroom. He was probably going to check the contents of the bathroom bin. 

Smirking to himself as he sat his wife down, Satoshi retrieved the jacket he’d shrugged off earlier and draped it over her shoulders. “Just sit here for a bit, I’ll get you some tea.” 

She nodded, one hand clenching the jacket he’d placed over her shoulders as the other hand swiped tears of joy from her eyes. At least Minoru wasn’t going to be pestering her before the tea got here. He’d probably check the bin outside after he was done searching the bathroom looking for a pregnancy test that didn’t exist. It would give him enough time to calm his wife down enough to get her somewhat coherent again.

He took a moment to pack away the groceries Minoru had thoughtlessly dumped onto the floor and wracked his brain for an explanation for Yun’s behaviour. If it was something he couldn’t immediately figure out… the reason his wife was acting like this most probably had to do with those powers of hers. 

She’d tried explaining things to him before, on many an occasion. The way ‘Flame Actives’ acted and reacted around each other, he also remembered the various types she’d listed. Kyouya was a ‘Classic Cloud’ with a secondary ‘Polarized Mist’. All of which somehow equated to a standoffish little soul who was utterly convinced the world followed the same rules as the Animal Kingdom and couldn’t be budged from the idea for anything. 

The fact that his son was so easily irritated was an indication of his potential strength; apparently the stronger the ‘Cloud Flame’, the easier it was to shatter their ‘Noble Drifting.’ The flip-side of that violence was what his wife was currently experiencing right now. One of her ‘secondary’ flames was a ‘Polarized Cloud’, which meant when HER ‘Noble Drifting’ was shattered she went into a meltdown. 

Yun had three flames. Classic Sun as a primary. Classic Storm and Polarized Cloud as her secondary flames. He almost wished he had the ability to at least see the flames but they were invisible to the naked eye. He’d had to wear a special pair of goggles to see them and she’d hidden them since letting him borrow them that one time. He’d searched the house top to bottom more than once trying to find them again but she was wilier than he was, he hadn’t found them since.

It had been a while since she’d had a meltdown quite this impressive; he hoped Takesushi wasn’t busy tonight, he was going to need an express delivery. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and scrolled down the list of numbers for the one his wife had said to call whenever she or Kyouya came home ‘out of sorts’. If this didn’t qualify for it then he didn’t know what did.

“Ask for the blue menu,” she’d said. “Never ask for the Yellow, Green or Red. The Purple one is for whenever Kyouya has a cold. Always ask if they have any of the Orange in stock. Always ask; I know they hardly ever have it but ASK. It’s the absolute best…” she’d trailed off with a wistful look and pout at the ‘sold out’ stamp on the menu board of the restaurant she’d dragged him to on that date.

The orange menu was the ‘Deluxe’ set, one that came accompanied with a small flask big enough for a single serve of tea. You couldn’t get another flask unless you bought another Orange menu set and that was only if they still had it in stock. Takesushi charged through the nose for it too.

“You have no idea how cheap that is. No idea.” She’d corrected him when he boggled at the price.

“For ONE cup of tea?” he’d asked incredulously. Sure you could get any of the other ‘flavours’ to go with that one flask of tea but they asked a lot of money for what was essentially a regular Deluxe sushi set with a bit of tea on the side. “What’s it made out of? Solid gold Dodo farts?”

“Don’t be silly, it’s nowhere near that cheap.” She’d giggled at his sarcasm.

“… sweetheart, Dodo’s are extinct. I fail to see how something could be more expensive.”

“One day. One day when they have it… I might let you have a sip. Might. Because I love you.”

Shaking his head at the memory, he dialled the number of the restaurant and Tsuyoshi picked up halfway through the second ring. Probably not a busy night then. He asked after the Orange menu, (as he always did whenever he called the restaurant per his wife’s orders), and got the customary bark of laughter in return. Placing an order for the Blue menu, two regular dinner sets and a children’s menu, Satoshi waited for confirmation that the order had been correctly placed and asked if it could be express delivered.

“Are congratulations in order?” Tsuyoshi teased afterwards. “Last time you ordered the Blue menu Yun had Kyouya on the way; are we looking forward to another addition to the Hibari family?”

Satoshi snorted. “No, Yun’s just had a bit of a meltdown earlier. She’s not pregnant but she’s not told me anything yet, she’s in quite the state. If I could place an order for the breakfast menu as well, I’d be grateful. One adult’s and one child’s Blue sets and two regular breakfast menus please.”

“… did something happened to Kyouya?”

He opened his mouth to reply when a tug on the back of his shirt stopped him, Yun was clinging to him and shaking her head frantically. Taking the hint Satoshi returned to the call. “Just the usual with him, you know what he’s like.” He said, slipping an arm around his wife to return the shaky hug she plastered up against his side.

“Alright then, I’ll have the order to you as fast as I can get it to you.”

“Thank you.” Satoshi replied, hanging up the phone and putting it back into his pocket and then fully wrapping his arms around his trembling wife. “You’re going to explain that later.” He said as he scooped her up for a second time so he could return her to the living room. “I won’t say anything further to anyone else till you give me the go ahead though, if it was important enough to get you onto your feet in this state.”

He was patient enough; he knew Yun would explain it all to him when she could.

He sat down at the kotatsu with her in his lap, bringing his arms around her in a solid and reassuring hug, honestly what else could he do but wait? Nothing. It wasn’t like he knew what she was going through, no matter how hard he tried to see things through her perspective. She was very much a product of her culture, where her ability to create and use Flames was the absolute center of her universe and he was pretty much the opposite of that. Born and raised outside of that influence, even though she’d once said that he was “Flame Active but not Useful”. Learning the terminology was difficult when she was ever so reluctant to speak about it but he’d figured out that meant he HAD flames, he just wasn’t capable of USING them. A latent gift he’d been born with that had never ‘shifted to Useful’.

He’d once asked her if he could learn how to use HIS latent Flames and she’d nearly broken down at the idea, terrified that he’d break himself. He was apparently too old for the training; the latest age at which you could be trained was early twenties. The training methods were lethal if not done right, damaging if used on someone not prepared for it and inevitably changed the user’s base physiology. Values, world views and personality changed with the shift from Active to Useful and there were only two shapes your new personality would settle into. 

Hitman or Guardian.

He didn’t have to ask what the first one meant, the title was all too telling, but he’d never been able to get her to explain that last one to him. She’d always brushed aside those questions, managing to distract him each and every time he asked with a bitter and wistful look twisting her lips. 

Was he finally going to get an answer now?

“You’re messing with me again, aren’t you?” Minoru interrupted his thought process from the doorway, hair ruffled and the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to his elbows. He looked like he’d actually dug through the bin outside.

“Idiot. Go take a bath.” He smirked, propping his chin up on his wife’s shoulder instead of answering. “Dinner is on its way.”

Minoru frowned at him. “You’re not cooking? What are we having?”

Satoshi felt the smirk on his face grow wider. “Takesushi, the blue menu.”

“She IS pregnant, isn’t she!” Minoru howled, hands coming up to clutch at his hair. “We haven’t had the blue menu since Kyouya was born!”

Yun giggled somewhat hysterically into his shirt.

“Laugh it up while you can!” Minoru grumped in her direction. “Might as well enjoy it! Oh god, another Kyouya. Good-bye sanity, it was nice knowing you.” His little brother whined, slumping away from the doorway and out of the living room. Headed to the bathroom most probably.

“Wonder who he thinks he’s fooling, acting like he doesn’t like Kyouya when we all know better.” Satoshi smirked. 

“Oh god, stop…..” Yun laughed shakily into his shoulder, “You’re not hel--- heee~” 

Yun was so excited she couldn’t even regulate her breathing. Her breath kept jolting out of the patterned exercises she usually fell into when she got overly excited and fell right back into giggling helplessly. It was a good thing that the calming tea Yun had practically lived off for the nearly the entirety of her pregnancy, (and the few weeks of recovery afterwards), would be here soon. 

There weren’t a lot of things that could get Yun quite this hilariously knocked off kilter. Giggles and silly little laughs kept escaping her, it was altogether too adorable. Satoshi was going to enjoy it while it lasted.

That and getting Minoru worked up over nothing was fun all on its own. When else was he going to get an opportunity to ruffle his little brother’s feathers quite so thoroughly? Without actually putting any effort into it? He wasn’t about to let the moment pass, it would be a waste. Such easy entertainment, while not exactly hard to come by, would also teach Minoru not to jump to hasty conclusions. 

Entertainment and a lesson all rolled into one neat package. 

OoO

Pepper spray, a pair of brass knuckles, a sheathed hunting knife, a length of chain, a small snub-nosed club, a set of handcuffs complete with key, a canister that was clearly labelled ‘Tear Gas’ and a taser.

Tsuna felt his jaw drop open at the discovery of the weaponry he’d dug out of the innocuous paper bag sitting on the kitchen table and wondered if he’d somehow fallen and hit his head somewhere. He had to be dreaming this, there was no way he’d actually found these items in his own home. On his kitchen table. With what looked like a shopping list written in his mother’s handwriting with items crossed off it sat at the bottom of the now empty bag.

This had to be a joke of some kind, some kind of hidden television show because how had his mother gotten a canister of tear gas let alone a taser?

He’d come down the stairs after he’d heard his mother bid goodbye to the social worker, fully intending to share dinner with his mother now that the intruding adult was gone. He’d thought the brown paper bag on the kitchen table was full of ingredients for dinner and had gone to help his mother prepare it. At least help her wash the vegetables if he still couldn’t trust himself enough to use the kitchen knife.

How exactly did his mother think she’d convince him into using that hunting knife when he was already too wary of his own clumsiness to use a regular—

There was a gas mask peeking out of his mother’s handbag. A gas mask. In his mother’s handbag. One that had a lucky charm hanging from it. One of the ones you could buy from the Namimori shrine. 

Finishing off the collection was a simple stick whistle made of stainless steel.

Unable to help himself Tsuna reached for it and tested it without any thought to the time of night or the kind of noise it might make, shock having knocked the wits from him. The resulting whistle was shrill enough to wake the dead. He let it fall out of his mouth with the sound still ringing in his ears and stared down at small thing in his hand with his mouth agape.

What on earth…

“Tsu-kun~! You’re awake! And you found all the things I got for you today! Aww, I wanted it to be a surprise!” his mother moped playfully.

“I—I’m surprised. Really… where did you GET all of this?”

“Mama called some old school friends of hers, they helped me get everything! I haven’t seen them in so long, we had a great time!” his mother giggled. “All of them have grown up to be so lovely~!”

Exactly what kind of friends had his mother made in high school? Why would they freely give his mother weaponry at that?

“They were so happy to see me! They all thought I’d gone to Italy, how silly! But look at what else they gave me! Here, see how lovely they turned out?” His mother had a large photo album in her hands and was holding it out to show him.

A group of tough looking women, all posed around his mother with wide and wild grins on their faces. His mother front and center beaming at the camera and looking so out of place in her simple blue jeans and light blue sweater that he wondered when the joke was going to end.

But then he looked to the page opposite the most recent picture and blinked. Hard.

An all-girl gang. Half of them wearing high school uniforms. Standing front and center was a teenager wearing a long black coat over her uniform, one that was all too recognizable as his mother. Only her face was set in an expression he’d never seen on her face. Wild smirk stretching ear to ear, dyed-blond hair tied back in a high pony-tail and posing with a bokken braced against a shoulder. 

She was also flipping the bird at the camera with her free hand.

Tsuna closed the cover of the photo album on the brain-breaking picture, and had to open and close his mouth several times before he could get his mouth working again. Swallowing back the urge to ask if he was adopted, Tsuna pressed the book back into his mother’s hands. “This has some… precious memories in here. You should… keep it safe.”

He’d wanted answers, hadn’t he? He’d been curious about what his mother had bought for him as well. Well, he’d gotten a few answers, just none of the ones he’d been looking for. Why had he even wanted to know in the first place? Now he was wondering what had changed the girl in the picture into the woman standing in front of him. It wasn’t meshing with his current mental image and now he had one more thing to add to his growing list of questions.

He’d ask his mother if he could look through her new photo album at a later date, when he had less on his plate and felt a little more grounded. He was feeling a little light headed, it might have been the hunger talking, but it might also have had a little something to do with finding an armoury in an innocent looking paper bag when he’d been expecting vegetables.

Never-mind the fact his mother had just oh-so-casually just dropped a rather large ‘bomb’ into his lap without any warning. Who would have guessed his mother was a former ‘Yankii’ with the way she acted now? Even her own SON was having trouble believing it and he’d had photographic evidence shoved under his nose.

Not to mention the armoury-in-a-bag.

An armoury she was cheerfully sorting through while humming a sweet little song under her breath. She dropped the canister of pepper spray, brass knuckles, and handcuffs into the paper bag and held it out to him. Apparently seeing no problem with handing the lot over to a seven-year-old.

“Here you go Tsu-kun, you can keep these ones for now but Mama’s going to show you how to use the rest later.” She announced with satisfaction, looking absolutely certain he’d have no problem with what she’d already handed over.

To a seven year old.

Thank god he’d decided to avoid Hashimoto Rin on her visit. If his mother had pulled out her ‘gifts’ out in front of her new friend… Imagining what a stranger would think had him palming his face. HE knew he was very responsible for his age, but not a lot of other people did. Even he was having trouble believing his mother trusted him enough to just hand this all over to him! 

“Oh, this one too, Tsu-kun!” she enthused, holding out the next object deemed ‘safe enough’ for him to use without instruction. Tsuna reached out a slightly shaking hand, accepted the sheathed hunting knife and dropped it into his paper-bag-armoury before his sweat-slick palm could land it on one of his feet.

Oh god, where was he going to HIDE his new and apparently incomplete armoury?

OoO

Minoru didn’t take very long in the shower and didn’t bother with taking a bath. He really had no interest in relaxing until he knew for sure there wasn’t going to be another addition to their family and damned if he wasn’t going to find out. He was half sure his brother was just messing with him, using Yun’s half-hysterical breakdown as an excuse to tease him, but goddamned he wished his brother wasn’t such an genius at it. 

He’d NEVER seen Yun act like this outside of an incident involving Kyouya. That much at least had to be right. If this wasn’t about a surprise pregnancy then there was no doubt this had something to do with his nephew. Nothing else could get Yun tripping over her mental feet. Other than his brother… or a new baby.

Shit. Maybe she really WAS pregnant!

Huffing an irritated breath at not knowing for sure Minoru scrubbed a towel over his head, roughly taking his frustration out on his wet hair. He was probably playing right into his brother’s hand by acting like this, but he couldn’t help it, his brother was a bastard. One who thoroughly enjoyed winding up his long-suffering little brother.

He had just the solution for it though. If his brother wanted him wound up he was just going to have to wind himself down. Throwing on a yukata Minoru stalked out of the bathroom and into the kitchen, a few moments and a water-bath for his alcohol later and he had enough warm sake to get himself well and truly plastered. If Yun really was pregnant he was going to NEED it.

The doorbell rang.

“Stay there, I’ll get it.” he yelled down the hallway as he poured his newly warm sake into a decanter, grabbed a sake cup and knocked a shot back to get him going. He balanced his now empty sake cup on the lip of the bottle and revisited the bathroom to retrieve his wallet.

Yun wasn’t going to be able to grab the takeout without dropping it all over the place and Satoshi was better off staying right where he was. Away from him and keeping his sarcasm to himself. 

Accepting the takeout from the delivery guy, Minoru handed the man the money owed and tried his very best not to slam the door on the man's face afterwards. He did NOT need someone smirking in his face right now, thank-you-very-much. He didn’t CARE that Tsuyoshi had been a rather loose acquaintance of theirs for a number of years; he didn’t need the questioning right now. 

The knowing chuckle at his obvious irritation didn’t help much either.

Yes, they’d ordered the blue menu. Was there a problem with that? Maybe Yun needed calming down for a completely unrelated reason. She didn’t HAVE to be pregnant! Goddamned flame-users. They had their own secret language and apparently the fucking blue menu spoke volumes. Tsuyoshi had taken one look at his face and had apparently seen something that he found hilarious, the bite of poorly hidden laughter in his eyes made him feel like he wanted to flip the sushi at the man’s retreating back.

Juggling the plastic bags, his sake and the sake cup into the living room he slid the door open with his foot and sat himself down. He set his sake down, rooted through the plastic bag for the flask of magical calming tea that cost more than the actual sushi they’d ordered, and planted it on the table in front of his sister-in-law.

“Alright, hit me with it. Boy or girl? Just tell me it’s not another ‘Cloud’, I don’t think we’d survive.”

Yun nearly choked on the lungful of tea she was already guzzling, she had to stop drinking for a bit as she folded over herself in laughter. Satoshi pet her back, clicking his tongue at Minoru and shaking his head. “Idiot, she’s not pregnant.”

“I knew it!” Minoru ground out through gritted teeth, slamming a palm against the table’s surface. “What the hell? Couldn’t you find something else to joke about? Next time you pull this shit on me I’m moving to Antarctica!” he vowed. Thank god. His brother was still an asshole but at the very least Yun wasn’t pregnant. He paused in the act of reaching for his sake cup and drank straight from the decanter instead. 

He could NOT deal with another Kyouya.

“You wouldn’t last a week.” His brother snorted, more interested in the contents of the sushi order he was unpacking than concerned with the threat of his brother leaving the country.

He really wouldn’t, damn his idiot brother and his goddamned sense of humour. 

“Want to tell me what all this is about then?” Minoru deadpanned, setting the alcohol down and accepting the sushi his brother handed to him, nodding his head at the flask of tea his sister-in-law had all but inhaled. She already looked like she was almost done with the whole flask, downing it in less time it took to unpack the food.

Yun hiccoughed.

“Seriously, we all remember the last time she went this crazy…” he trailed off meaningfully, turning to Yun and rolling his eyes at the offended look on her face “… and don’t give me that look, you know you’re a spaz!”

“It’s not my fault.” She muttered into the lip of the flask, eyeing the opening and tilting the container as if she were hoping that maybe if she tilted it the right way more tea would magically appear. “It’s hard to keep a level head when my primary keeps feeding the secondaries.”

“Okay, whatever. Out with it, what got you into such a tizzy?” Minoru asked, not interested in getting into an argument he’d lose out of ignorance.

“I told you about the six flames of death perception that Kyouya might one day inherit right?” She asked brightly. 

“Cloud and Mist…” Minoru muttered as he split his chopsticks apart, eying the woman out of the corner of his eye as he unwrapped his food.

“Sun and Storm.” Satoshi added, reaching forward and stealing his sake cup. Pouring himself a bit from the decanter Minoru had brought for himself.

“I drank from that.” He muttered at his brother, stealing his sake back.

“Don’t care.” Satoshi shrugged, knocking the stolen cup’s worth of sake back in one shot.

Yun ignored the byplay. “That's right, Rain and Lightning as well... but there's another flame I never mentioned. A seventh flame.”

“Why didn’t you mention it?” Satoshi asked, giving Minoru his sake cup back.

“Because there was absolutely no possibility Kyouya would ever end up with that flame, there hasn’t been one in our family with that flame in recorded history…”

“It could have come from our side though, you did say WE had flames…”

Yun slanted an amused smile in his direction. “Trust me, you would know if you’d had one in the family. The stories would have been passed down. The seventh flame is rarest but it always draws the most attention.”

“Okay…” Minoru drawled, not understanding why Yun had gone off on such a seemingly pointless tangent. “That still doesn’t explain anything.”

“Kyouya isn’t going to become a hitman.”

OoO

Yun breathed in a deep, long breath, and felt her heart race with excitement. Kyouya wasn’t going to be a Hitman. She felt like she could scream, laugh and cry all at the same time.

Sawada Tsunayoshi, that boy… God she was hardly able to contain herself. Not even the Rain-infused tea was able to much more than take the edge off of the high she was on and get her coherent, and she’d finished the entire flask in one go! The hair on her arms stood on end. A Sky in Namimori young enough to Harmonize with her son. Not just that but accepting enough, and strong enough, to not outright reject him! 

How did she even start explain it? 

“… do we need to order you another blue set?” Minoru asked sarcastically, eyebrow arching as he pinned her with a dry look.

She huffed. Just because he didn’t understand! So impatient!

“Remember how I said I was going to have to train Kyouya into learning how to control his instincts? That there were two paths his flame would develop in?”

Satoshi nodded. “You said he was developing into a hitman.”

Good, he’d been listening to her. “At the time I thought he was. Kyouya has all the typical personality markers of a Hitman in the making. I should have seen this coming, he’s unusually protective of animals!”

“Some animals.” Minoru muttered.

“Oh god, SHUT UUUP~!” she flailed, how was she ever going to get an explanation out with Minoru injecting sarcastic and pithy little comments whenever she paused to take a breath?

Satoshi came to her rescue with admirable speed, slapping a heavy hand up the backside of his brother’s head. “Yun, continue. You said there were TWO paths; Kyouya obviously has decided not to pursue your 'Hitman' plans—’

“I didn't WANT him to be a Hitman! That was just the only— it takes SPECIAL circumstances to go the other way!” she protested. 

“Sorry, forget I said that. Special circumstances?” her husband asked apologetically, holding his palms up in surrender.

“The seventh flame type I never mentioned, it… Okay. Let me explain it this way. There are seven types of flames…” bouncing out of her husband’s lap, she lunged forward so she could grab the small pamphlet that came with the takeaway out of the box. Perfect, a visual prop.

She cleared a space on the table, tore into the pamphlet and arranging the now separated bits of coloured paper around the orange bit she’d ripped out first. “Cloud, Mist, Sun, Storm, Rain, Lightning… and Sky. Each of the flames on the outside can exist alone on the path I went down as a hitman, or woman in my case.”

“… and the one in the middle?” her husband asked. As expected, so quick to pick up on unspoken clues!

“I’ll get to that in a moment. Now, Kyouya’s flame is strong. He won’t be like either of you, his flames are going to become Useful whether he wants them to or not. That gives him two paths to follow. I’ve been teaching him to control himself because up until NOW there was only really one path for him to follow because of the way he was starting to drown in his instincts. But now there’s another chance, a better one! That little boy, the one you said made friends with him? HE has that seventh flame! That stupidly rare and special and amazing flame! He can save Kyouya from going down that path!” 

“How?!” Her husband asked incredulously and she had to forcefully stop herself from launching forward and flattening him in a hug at the bright spark of hope in his eyes. He understood how amazing this was!

“Just by being himself! Remember how I said they all had their special abilities? Cloud is Propagation, Storm is Disintegration, Sun is Activation, Lightning is Hardening, Rain is Tranquillity and Mist is Construction. The seventh flame is the rarest and most coveted flame in existence, because the property of Sky flames is Harmony.” She finished, stressing that last word meaningfully. 

“Sky flame users are the kings of the underworld, they’re the centrepiece and lynch-pin that holds it all together. Their flames support and strengthen other flames, they can’t exist without each other… or they can, it’s just not a very pleasant place to be.” She trailed off, a small and wistful sigh escaping her. “Skies… draw people in, they grab hold and don’t let go and in return a Flame-user protects the Sky. The connection forges a bond that stabilizes and strengthens both sides and when a flame user bonds with a Sky... they become a Guardian. We call it ‘Achieving Harmony’ and it’s an existence that all flame-users seek instinctively.”

“Even you?” Satoshi asked quietly.

“Once upon a time.” she admitted. “Flame users aren’t mean to live a singular existence but there are so few Skies in the world that only a small handful achieve Harmony. Sun-flames are the most popular flame in the world, I would have had to fight my competitors to the death had I found one… It was a fleeting dream at best, but thank god I never found one or I would have never have met you!” she grinned, leaning forward to give the beautiful man a kiss on his gorgeous nose. God, how had she gotten so lucky?

“But you know what? Cloud Flame users might not be rare but they are picky as hell! If we play our cards right with Kyouya then Tsunayoshi might choose him! He has the chance of becoming a Guardian!”

“Is this why you didn’t want me telling Tsuyoshi-san anything earlier?”

“Partially, he’s not a bad sort but the risk that he might tell someone Kyouya found a Sky is too great to risk. The news would spread like WILDFIRE in the local Flame community and I have no idea if he would keep the news to himself. People would come out of the woodwork in droves looking to achieve Harmony. We want to up Kyouya’s chances AND keep the both of them as safe as possible; keeping it a secret really is the only way to do that.” 

She’d have liked to think Tsuyoshi would keep the secret, he was a good man, but by that same virtue, he could very well tell everyone. Thinking that the more people in their little community knew, the better they could ALL come together and protect the little Sky. Naively believing that all the Flame-users in Namimori would all have the same pure motivation. The man was a Classic Rain through and through.

“Harmony? That sounds just like the soothing one doesn’t it?” Minoru asked sceptically, rubbing the back of his stinging head. “Isn’t there already one that calms people down? Rain wasn’t it— Hyurk~!” 

Yun had him in a headlock before he could finish. “Interrupt me one more time, I dare you!” She challenged, “Sky flames do more than just ‘calm people down’, they bring everyone together! Nothing that compares to a Harmony! Nothing! This?” She asked, letting go of Minoru and to grab the empty flask that had contained the Rain infused tea to shake it in his face. “Can’t even BEGIN to compare!”

She tossed the empty flask over her shoulder and heard something break. 

Satoshi arched an eyebrow at her.

“I’ll clean that up later.” She promised him, letting go of her brother-in-law and ignoring his exaggerated choking so she could continue. “The best part of this is that while any of these flames can stand alone as a hitman, Sky-flame users can’t. They need each other! When Sawada Tsunayoshi grows old enough he’s going to NEED a Cloud! A strong one and Kyouya is the strongest Cloud in Namimori! Not only that but Kyouya has a secondary, which means that even in the very unlikely chance Tsunayoshi doesn’t choose Kyouya as his Cloud, he might choose him as his Mist. Two chances! TWO!”

Minoru sat up again, having exaggeratedly slumped over the table, and opened his mouth to talk. He paused for a bit, pinched back a glare, gave her a considering sidewise look and finally held up his hand.

“… Yes?”

“How do you even know it’s even going to happen? The way you talk about it makes it sound like Kyouya’s chances might be slim.”

“Because it’s already started.” Yun answered simply, getting up and snagging the remote control up off the cabinet it was sitting on. “Watch this.” She said, pointing out the brown haired Sky’s body-language in the video. “No anxiety, no intimidation. He just got out of the hospital and there isn’t a shred of fear there. He’s completely receptive to Kyouya! You already saw how Kyouya acted but LOOK at how he just gave in here! He’d never DO that for anyone less than a Sky.”

Just watching the scant few minutes of the video before Kyouya was dumped into view made the hair on her arms stand on end. The young Sky, already so badgered for attention that his small shoulders were stiff with anxiety, relaxed within minutes of being in her son’s presence. His guard dropped, his expression opened up and his whole demeanour changed. 

It was a subconscious acknowledgement of her son’s Guardian potential. You couldn’t GET a more accurate assessment, not even from a professional. She could have taken Kyouya to a specialized flame-hospital when he was younger, but she’d thought there was nothing they could tell her about him that she didn’t already know. Even though there had been cases of mistaken potential. She should have known better, no one could tell a Sky who was or wasn’t suitable to become their Guardian! 

This though, was something else. Personal acknowledgement from a Sky. Caught on tape even. “We’ve got a chance here, a good one! I’ll make sure Kyouya put’s his best foot forward so Tsunayoshi-kun won’t even LOOK at anyone else!” Stealing Minoru’s sake off him before he could stop her, she tipped the decanter back and downed half of the bottle with a grin, ignoring his grumbles and letting him have it when he stole it back. 

Kyouya had chosen his path and she was going to do everything in her power to make sure his wish for Harmony came true.

“We need more sake then this… I’ll be right back.” She breathed, bouncing to her feet. 

They needed to celebrate!

OoO

Tsuna shoved the paper bag and its brain-breaking contents under the cover of his blanket and shoved a pillow on top, as long as it wasn’t in his direct line-of-sight he could pretend it didn’t exist. He couldn’t hide the lot under his bed, that was the first place anyone would look for anything interesting. The toy chest wasn’t a very smart idea because what if one day his mother got it in her head to invite over a ‘friend’ for him to come play with? 

She would, it was only a matter of time. He considered himself lucky she hadn’t had THAT bright idea before this. Who knew what kind of kid she’d invite over? Where could he hide the weapons his mother had given him where someone else wouldn’t get hurt? He couldn’t hide them in his closet. The desk was out as another place far too obvious a place to look. 

Wait. He could just hide bits of it in a few of those places. The handcuffs could go in the toy chest. The pepper-spray… he could hide that in a sock. It was the knuckle-dusters and the hunting knife he had no idea what to do with. Also where was he going to hide the OTHER stuff his mother was eventually going to ‘teach’ him how to use?

He looked around his room desperately and his eyes latched onto the doorway of his cupboard. He might not be able to hide anything IN there but… maybe under it? Once upon a time his dream-self had hidden stuff under a loose floorboard in his room, Tsuna’s room was carpeted but it didn’t extend to the built-in-cupboard. He still had bare floorboards in there. 

A quick trip down the stairs to grab the toolbox from the storage room near the kitchen and Tsuna was swearing under his breath in a uncharacteristic mix of English, Japanese, Irish and Latin with a little bit of the French and Bulgarian swear words Harry Potter had picked up during the Triwizard tournament thrown in to flavour his agitation.

The floorboard he picked to try prying up wouldn’t budge, he tried putting his whole weight on it but all that did was knock the crowbar out of place and earn him a scrape along his elbow. He knocked his knee on the frame of his cupboard, his head on the shelf above the area he was trying to pry up and jammed his fingers against the wedge of the sliding door.

He was also doing a lot of damage to the floorboard itself, scratching the surface beyond what could be passed off as a casual accident. It would be obvious to anyone who looked that someone had tried to pry up the floorboards. The scarred surface would take WORK to look presentable again and he had no idea how to go about fixing that. 

Just how useless was he? He’d had to run from his own classmates earlier in the day and had hidden in the library till everyone gave up and went home. He’d FAINTED. Like an idiot because he’d accidentally reached for the flames under the seal like he hadn’t done for YEARS. When he’d been training himself out of that knee-jerk reaction for how long? Then he’d played possum the whole time Hashimoto-san had been visiting, like some kind of coward. He couldn’t even reach a freaking SHELF in his mother’s room. A shelf that probably didn’t have anything ON it. Now here he was trying to pry up ONE stupid floorboard and he’d already mucked it up, injured himself on top and he STILL had the start of an armoury ON HIS BED. 

His mother was also planning on giving him more, as if what she’d already given him wasn’t enough already. His former Yankii of a mother who had terrifying friends who would probably replace everything he ‘lost’. On top of that, none of his questions had been answered and he now had new ones to pile on top of the mountain he had going on already. 

He was tired and wired up at the same time. He was hungry and cold and he was so-damned-FRUSTRATED. He wouldn’t have HALF these problems if he was big enough to solve them. If he was the same age as his dream-self. Seventeen instead of seven. 

Scrabbling a hand for his flask, Tsuna opened it and drained the contents; might as well. What was he saving it for anyway? He had a KNIFE over there and a stupidly loud whistle and some pepper-spray. He almost wanted someone to come attack him right now, give a little back to the world that was pushing him so very hard. The last drop of tea hit his tongue and he still wasn’t satisfied, the flames in the flask were still burning. He didn’t necessarily want to get up and go to all the trouble to refill it with tea when he’d just drain it again.

Well, if he could use the flames in the tea… could he force the flames back into his system? Couldn’t be THAT much more difficult. It would just be a matter of drawing it to him…

Eyeing the opening, he narrowed his eyes and used the same mental tug he usually focused on the flames inside his body and reversed the process. Instead of drawing it out of his body… he was now drawing it in. 

Tsuna knew he’d made a mistake the second his vision fractured.

He was so used to the minute and diluted traces of flame in his tea that the flame he drew on from the flask slammed into him like a truck. He gasped and fell forward, hands dropping the flask he was holding so he could brace himself up on his hands and knees. His heartbeat thundered in his ears, reverberating at the same beat as the ripples of pure HEAT washing through him. His whole body felt like it was melting and his bones joined in on the feeling. The world swum around him and the sound of his flask hitting the floorboards in his cupboard crashed through his skull, nearly drowning out the sound of cloth tearing. 

Mistake. He’d made a mistake. He should have known better than to use his magic when his emotions were running high! His dream-self had enough painful and embarrassing moments of Accidental Magic to his name, he really didn’t need to experience it himself! If there was enough breath left in him he would have screamed.

Just when he thought he couldn’t stand anymore of it, the pain abruptly stopped.

He was laying face-down on the floor, nose buried in the carpet. He was panting, shivers wracking though him uncontrollably. He breathed in a tentative and shuddering breath and didn’t move for a very long moment, basking in the fact that he’d somehow lived through the idiotic mistake he’d made.

The pain… had vanished. Lasting only for as long as it took for the flash of fire to spread through and absorb right back into him. Grunting a little as he moved, Tsuna awkwardly pushed himself up with an arm curled around his aching ribs and lifted his surprisingly heavy head, sliding himself into a sitting position using the wall as his support.

It took until his wavering vision solidified before he realized something had gone very, VERY wrong. Or at the very least his outburst of Accidental Magic had taken a rather unexpected route.

“… oh my god.” He whispered to himself as he raked his now shoulder-length hair out of his eyes and stared at his hand.

His unfamiliar hand.

Using it to pat himself down, along his chest, other arm and face, Tsuna pinched his own cheek and jumped at the feeling. He… he wasn’t dreaming this! Wobbling awkwardly to his feet Tsuna teetered uncertainly for a few steps, trying to balance properly at the strange new height his magic had decided leave him at and grabbed for his blanket when his torn clothing threatened to fall off of him. He dragged the blanket off his bed, ignored the clatter that fell to the floor and wrapped it around his unsteady body.

He’d… transformed himself.

Taking a moment to check if the coast was Tsuna stumbled for the bathroom, tripping over his feet and bumping into the doorjamb before safely making his way inside. He needed to see what he’d done to himself. He had an inkling of what he’d done, he’d been thinking of how useless he was as a kid and had been wishing he were seventeen instead of seven. He’d been overly emotional and upset; he’d also been playing around with his magic like an idiot.

Closing the bathroom door behind him Tsuna’s shaking hands fumbled for the light switch, flicking them on as his body turned in anticipation of the vision that would greet him in the mirror.

Narrow amber eyes and a sharp face. High cheekbones and thin bladed nose. Brown-tipped blond hair. The face he was staring at was a teenager’s. The body he was moving around in was at oh-so-much taller and least ten years older than it should rightly be.

And he had no idea how he was going to reverse it.

His magic had taken his frustrated and idiotic wish to be older and had RUN with it. His mother was downstairs cooking dinner and expected him to come down and share it with her. He had SCHOOL the next day, how on earth was he supposed to explain this? Not to mention Hashimoto-san had mentioned she’d be visiting tomorrow.

Meeting his own amber eyes in the mirror, he watched his own mouth drop open as few beads of cold sweat ran down the side of his teenaged face. His reflection grew rapidly pale. 

“Oh shit.”

OoO 

Chapter End


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, after god knows how long fighting the good fight against the bastard Writers Block! I have defeated the Dread Foe.
> 
> My apologies for the wait. Also I’ll be uploading without my beta reading it as she’s gone ahead and rolled off into bed. So please ignore any typos you happened to see and errors see and I’ll replace the chapter with a beta’ed version in about a day.
> 
> As always a warm and loving thank-you to Araceil and Thirteenth_To_Fall, love ya both! Also wow I did NOT think this chapter was going to get done today, yay me~! I deserve… a good night sleep, holy crap my eyes be burning!
> 
> Enjoy the chapter while I go roll off into my own bed~!

For a long while Tsuna couldn't think, his brain was blanketed in a thick haze of white noise. Boggling at his reflection, he tried to understand how it had happened and wondered how he was going to FIX it. He couldn't think of anything that would change him back. He didn't even know if what he'd done to himself was a momentary thing or permanent. All he knew was that he'd an act of accidental magic that almost topped everything Harry Potter had ever done.

After a moment spent waffling and panicking, half-hoping that whatever he'd done would undo itself within the next minute or so, Tsuna shook his head to clear his thoughts. Alright, he'd been here for a few minutes already, clearly this wasn't going to fix itself. That meant he had to find help or… wait for help to arrive.

He didn't know how Japan's Accidental Magical Reversal Squad worked but hopefully it was somewhat like it's British counterpart. That meant he'd have to make sure his mother didn't see him like this for about ten or so minutes, best save his mother from an unnecessary Memory Charm. Okay, he could do that. He just had to… find something to wear in the meantime. He didn't fancy being caught half-naked in a blanket.

A quick trip to his mother's room solved the problem. His mother kept all of his father's old clothes, even the ones back from when they'd both been teenagers, she never threw anything out. The clothes he pulled on were several sizes too large but it looked alright, almost like what any teenager wore these days.

Tsuna dragged his blanket back to his room and tossed it on his bed. He tossed his ripped clothing after it and pushed the weapons his mother had so thoughtfully given him under his bed with a foot. Pacing the room his fingers nervously worried at the hem of the shirt he was wearing as he stalked up and down the length of his room, waiting for his inevitable visitors.

A minute passed and then another.

He gave the crowbar that had caused his meltdown a side look and then knelt down to pry up the loose floorboards that had given him so much trouble earlier with laughable ease. He flattened the ends of the nails, retrieved the weapons from under his bed, wrapped them in the rags of the clothes he'd been wearing and dropped them into their new hiding place. He could get a bit of carpeting, cut it to size and no one would ever know he had a secret cache of weapons in his cupboard.

A glance at the clock sitting on his desk told him he'd only wasted about four minutes in total. He was going to drive himself insane at this rate. What else could he do to distract himself? He'd already fixed the floorboards and that hadn't calmed him down much. Well… he supposed he could always check the shelf he hadn't been able to reach earlier. But would that be too risky? His mother was just down stairs, what if she came up?

… he'd just have to be sneaky about it.

Edging the door open he had a quick look around and slunk out into the hallway, if his mother saw him now would she think he was a burglar? He'd mistake himself for one right now, especially given he was wearing his father's clothes. He looked like a punk! The two-toned hair didn't help much. Maybe he should wash it out before the Auror's arrived? It would be something else to distract himself with.

Checking the shelf in the cupboard that was too tall for him to reach before was as easy as dragging over a chair and hopping up on top. He still wasn't tall enough at the moment to see it with his feet on the floor but the chair gave him the height needed to give the space a thorough search. God, he really HAD gotten worked up over a fat load of nothing hadn't he? The only thing on that shelf was a few photo albums, some more clothing and a sewing kit. Snorting in disgust at himself Tsuna slouched into the bathroom, being just as careful leaving the room as he had been going in.

Draping a towel over his shoulders Tsuna turned on the shower hose and ducked his head under it. He washed the temporary dye out of his hair, turned off the tap and toweled his head dry, trying not to stare too hard at the reflection in the mirror. His hair had grown out at evenly and the length actually made it look a little neater than it usually did. He also looked like he could do with a few more meals under his belt. He wasn't gaunt but he wasn't as… tall as he'd pictured he'd be at this age.

He left the bathroom frowning and made a mental note to eat more. It wasn't too late, if he started eating more now… maybe he'd get taller.

Stealthily slipping back into his room Tsuna locked his door and sat himself down on his bed, absently rubbing his head with the towel he'd taken from the bathroom. Five minutes. He'd wasted five minutes wandering around and no sign of any Aurors. Ten minutes since he'd turned himself into a teenager and no sign of anyone at all.

What the hell was going on?

He started pacing his room again, anxiously twisting the towel around his neck as he went. Someone should have BEEN here by now! … okay. So maybe it would take longer than that! It had taken a pretty long time for people to get to the Dursley's place the night Harry had blown up his Aunt. So… should he give it half an hour? Exactly what was he supposed to do with himself in the meantime? He'd already done his homework and there was no way he'd be able to concentrate if he tried reading a book…

They'd been able to find Harry when he'd run off hadn't they? Maybe he could find an internet café somewhere and try to see if he could find anything online. Someone to contact maybe, a helpline for Muggleborn witches and wizards? There had to be something like that in this day and age! Just because he hadn't found any mention of one before didn't mean it didn't exist, he hadn't been looking for anything specific.

He would be now though. Forget anything else for now. He needed an Accidental Magic Reversal squad and he needed it soon.

Decision reached Tsuna pulled a book off of his shelf, retrieved a bit of the stash of cash hidden inside it and headed for his window. No way he was going to try and sneak past his mother looking like this, he'd be mistaken for a burglar! Also given the way his mother had taken to the punching dummy earlier that wasn't exactly something he wanted to be mistaken for. She knew how to land a punch and would probably be delighted in the chance to use said skills on someone who 'deserved' it. She didn't keep the doors locked anyway, he could always sneak back in through the back door if he had to.

OoO

Half an hour passed and no one bothered him.

He got side-looks aplenty, which might have been his hair or 'Allure' garnering attention, but otherwise no one looked at him twice.

Tucking himself away in an internet café, one that had private little booths for paying customers, he tried not to jump every time he heard the automatic doors open and close. He made sure to pick a booth almost all the way near the front of the shop and kept the sliding partisan open, all he had to do was twist a little on the padded floor he was sitting on to see who'd come in. He got a surprise when a dark haired teenager walked past his booth with a loaded tray to knock on one of the booths further down from him, stepping into the crowded cubby with his load to join his cheering friends.

The weedy-looking teenager gave him a strange, side-look as he passed and he flushed, ducked his head back into his own cubby but didn't close the door. He probably didn't look very trustworthy to the other people here with the way he was acting but he couldn't help himself. He may have wanted to be bigger earlier but that was BEFORE he'd known he could actually make it a possibility! Now all he wanted was to UNDO it! If that meant he had to be very obvious to any passing Auror? He'd make himself memorable.

He spent that first half hour trying to find anything even remotely connected to the magical world. He set up an email and joined forums by the dozens. He scoured through website after website until he felt like his eyes were starting to cross and he still hadn't found anything concrete at all. By the time an hour had passed since the change Tsuna was getting downright desperate. He'd found nothing at all on the internet and no one had approached him about the change. He hadn't seen hide nor hair of anyone who might even so much as pass as an Auror and it was starting to get late.

The next half hour passed by in anxious silence, he could barely concentrate on the websites he was trying to comb through looking for answers. He felt a little kick of excitement every time he got an email and then felt his guts twist in anxiety when he realized it was just another confirmation of registry or spam. Eventually he realized he'd been clicking through the same websites for the last few minutes and grit his teeth. His concentration was shot.

Tsuna logged out of the computer and got up. He left the cubicle and absently paid for the time he'd used on the computer and left the cafe. He wasn't finding help online, all he was doing was winding himself up into a nervous wreck.

What if the Accidental Magic Reversal squad never came? What would happen to him if he was stuck like this? Would his mother accept him like this? Even if she did how would they explain away his appearance and the disappearance of his actual self for however long this transformation lasted? Detective Hibari would know something was going on. How would they get this past him? The social worker too, she'd want to know what had happened to him and why his mother had suddenly adopted a teenager. God he was in So. Much. Trouble. Would he have to go to high school? He was barely scraping through elementary as it was, how would he survive that? Sure it was mostly because he wasn't paying even the slightest lick of attention during class but he'd be wholly and completely unprepared for being thrown that far into the deep end!

Maybe the effects would wear off on their own? On the nights he spent practicing how to use his flame he only ever managed to stay out until he felt like he couldn't hold the lid back on his flames anymore. If he used up the flames he'd introduced into his system… maybe his mistake would undo itself!

Or maybe it wouldn't and he'd be waiting around for himself to turn back to normal for nothing.

He gripped at his hair and tried not to hyperventilate. Okay, he just needed to calm down and THINK. Or possibly just calm down. He was going to end up driving himself insane if he didn't—

A passing teenager shoulder checked him.

A lick of pure irritation crawled up his spine and the heat inside him fanned it into a small flame. The emotion surged inside him as he caught himself with a hand against the brick wall of a shop front and scraped a layer of skin off his knuckles, it took some serious effort NOT to just turn up the heat and let it out. Anxiety and fear transformed into the hugely tempting urge to knock some sense into the jackass who purposely knocked into him. The dark haired, weedy looking teenager from the internet café had followed him out when he'd left. Tsuna knew why the instant he got a good look at the expression on the boy's face. This was a more grown-up version of his usual tormentors, one who was obviously spoiling for a fight.

Urgh, no. He was in enough trouble as it was, he was also not quite used to how tall he was at the moment. Getting into a scrape-up as he was now would just be stupid—

"AAAH! YOU BROKE MY ARM!" The weedy looking teenager yelled as he staggered backwards cradling his shoulder in a mocking parody of pain, falling to the floor in an exaggerated tumble. The teen, who had to be somewhere around eighteen or nineteen years of age, howled for 'help'. All the while looking him dead in the eye and smirking ear to ear between yells.

"Seriously?" Tsuna asked as some more teens scurried up to him to crowd him up against the mouth of a nearby alleyway.

"Oi, oi. Look at what you did to Fushi! Do you know how much it costs to fix a broken arm?" one of them leered, dyed blond hair flopping into his dark eyes as he leaned forward into Tsuna's personal space.

The heat in Tsuna flared and the will to resist the urge to take his frustrations out on these random bullies vanished. What replaced it was the familiar thrumming itch to bury his fist in the teenager's face and he was helpless to resist. Caution flew to the wind. Anxiety vanished and he was living in the moment, lost in the haze of pure passion that came part and parcel with using his flames.

Dyed Blond fell backwards on his ass clutching at his face. Weedy Fushi scrambled, back-pedaling on his miraculously healed arms and scrambling to his feet, bolting away at the first sign of real conflict. His mates weren't nearly so easily frightened and the fight was ON.

OoO

When the flare of immature flames and the sounds of a scuffle reached him Yamamoto Tsuyoshi sighed feelingly.

When he'd retired from the life of a hitman he'd thought he'd be able to set aside the skills he'd learned on the job. Put down the sword and his ability to use flames and never think of them again. He'd closed that chapter of his life and he'd looked forward to raising Takeshi in a purely civilian lifestyle.

The expectation of what his life would be like didn't quite measure up to the reality.

He supposed part of the fault was his for choosing to live in a city that was basically a 'retirement village' of sorts for Flame Users. Namimori had been home to retired Hitmen and women since Vongola Giotto had settled in the town after surrendering leadership of the Vongola to Ricardo. Namimori was considered Neutral Territory and was treated a kind of holy ground. Prior loyalties didn't matter, whatever was in your past was to be forgotten. You could safely set aside a one skill-set to pick up a new life and so long as you didn't make trouble you'd be left alone. It was an unspoken law that dated back over four hundred years.

It had sounded too good to be true when Tsuyoshi had first heard of it but it still hadn't stopped him from taking the chance when offered and grabbing at it with both hands. If only he'd stopped to really consider what he'd been getting into when he'd traded in his sword for a set of chef's knives… he might have settled for somewhere a little less populated to raise his son in.

Somewhere where other people's Flame Active children weren't going to be running around biting other children, and adults, to 'Death'.

He hadn't realized how much of a community effort it would take to simply settle down and raise his own kid. The saying "It takes a village to raise a child.", had never rung truer to him than it had in those first few months of living in Namimori. Takeshi had been a colicky baby, restless and so very, very unhappy. Favours were quickly traded, flames were donated and suddenly Takeshi was the picture of perfect health and bubbly with happiness, well on his way into sleeping full nights.

While he was infinitely grateful for those first few days… taming the OTHER little bastards running footloose around town felt like he was drawing on more flames, and in SO much more of a delicate balance, than he'd used during his ENTIRE CAREER as a hitman.

He turned pleading eyes to his staff, and all of a sudden everyone was busy. His waiter Ichiro Kaji, a dark haired and thickly muscled man with dark eyes, decided wiping tables clean was suddenly of great importance and had turned his back to him. He had very pointedly taken off his Sun-channeling ring and stowed it away in a pocket. The cashier, a blond Lightning named Edith Malone, averted her light brown eyes and was seemingly absorbed with a receipt.

He turned to the only worker NOT ignoring him and was met with a bland wall of indifference. "Don't look at me, I'm still tapped out from the last time." the Mist said, idly polishing the surface of a knife to a mirror shine, pausing only to lean exaggeratedly against the counter he was standing next to as if suddenly utterly exhausted. Zhou Min was currently the only Mist user he had on roster, and perhaps the only one apart from himself that could safely defuse the scuffle in the alley way without too much hassle.

At least without getting the brats too interested in who or HOW it was happening. No one wanted to bring down the Vindice on anyone, especially not on some stupid Flame Active brats. It was a testament to how hard they worked on keeping their cover that a certain nine year old menace hadn't yet caught onto the 'carnivores' hiding right under his proverbial nose. Thank every god in existence that you had to be somewhere in between shifting from Active to Useful to actually see Flames, otherwise they'd have had a lot more difficulty keeping everything under wraps.

"I don't get paid enough for this." Tsuyoshi muttered as he snatched a flame channeling ring of his own off of a hook on the wall so he could thread it over his finger.

"WE don't get paid enough, you mean." Zhou snorted, tilting the edge of the knife to catch the light and smirking at his own thin-faced reflection. "Ortiz is unloading a delivery though, why don't you ask him?" the man asked lightly, nodding to the man who passed them with a load of rice bags over his shoulder.

"Cisco would ask if you wanted them done Rare, Medium-Rare or Well Done." The Storm Zhou had been referring to snapped sarcastically, twitchily scanning the restaurant as if searching for something. "Cisco is not in the mood for NOT breaking heads today."

Tsuyoshi grimaced. Cisco Ortiz was newly retired from his former lifestyle and the tension surrounding the man seemed almost palpable. The Puerto Rican was constantly on edge and even though he'd seemed to have been relaxing in the last few weeks, something had him wound up tighter than he'd been when he'd first moved to Namimori. Sending him out to deal with the kids making the ruckus would be signing their death certificates.

"Sucks being the only decently strong Element of your type in town doesn't it?" Zhou snickered when Tsuyoshi gave into the inevitable and reached under the counter for a bucket.

Ignoring him Tsuyoshi stuck the bucket under a tap. He carefully charged the water with a weak concentration of his Flame as it poured out of the tap and once it was full he filled up a spare just in case the days crowd happened to be an particularly large one. Sometimes he really wished he didn't have to be so cautious with the concentration of Flames that went into the water, he had to oh-so-careful, but the trouble of having to explain to the parents why their brats were comatose was more trouble than it was worth. If nothing else he supposed he could get a small bit of satisfaction out extracting the favour owed out of the kiddies parents after he rounded up their brats. Perhaps he could rope someone into babysitting duty for the weekend? He kept that thought in the forefront of his mind as he hefted the full buckets out of the sink and towards the back of the restaurant.

"All right brats!" he announced as he kicked the back door open, setting down one of the buckets so he could heave the first bucket-load of Rain-infused water up in a strong arc over the group cat-fighting teens. "TIME TO CALM DOWN!" 

The group once hit dropped to the ground like felled dominos, one by one succumbing to the Flame-saturated water until only one was left standing. A skinny blond teenager who looked like he might be somewhere around middle to high school age. He was stubbornly resisting the flames that had basically hit him point-blank in the face and was bent over with his hands braced against his knees, hair hanging like a wet curtain around his face as he fought the urge to join the rest.

Grudgingly impressed with the kid's willpower Tsuyoshi set the empty bucket down and picked up the next one. This was likely the instigator of the fight, a Flame Active who's Flames were close to shifting to Useful. He'd have no doubt have been feverishly itching for a fight, not even realizing he was riding the beginning stages of his Dying Will. The blond wasn't anyone he recognized, but maybe his parents had only recently moved to Namimori or were just passing through.

Whatever the case was, he was causing trouble. Left alone who knew what kind of damage he'd do unchecked. He was already scrapping it up with the local teens and didn't seem to care about the kind of noise he was making at this time of night. Best get him calmed down and back to where he belonged.

A hand snapped out from behind him to stop him from tossing the next bucket-load of water at the teenager, and Cisco very nearly wrestled it out of his grip, the man looking dangerously closer to violence than he had since his first day in town. "Neutral my ASS! I KNEW this town was too good to be true!" The Storm snarled, wrestling the bucket of water out of his grip and tossing it aside and away from Tsuyoshi's intended target. Shouldering past him and outside he steadied the swaying teenager and shrugged off his coat so he could wrap it around the kid's shoulders, Cisco then caught the dazed teen as he fell with the kind of gentle care that Tsuyoshi hadn't thought the man was capable of.

"I knew it!" The man repeated, half-crouched as he raked the wet hair out of the teenager's face, revealing the minute flicker of fading orange flame that fizzled out to nothing as the kid passed out. "So you're the one that's been driving me crazy this whole time huh?" The man asked the unconscious teenager as he scooped the kid up and got to his feet. "Christ~! A goddamned Sky. Fucking knew it! No wonder I felt like I was going insane! Bet you don't even have any Guardians yet, at the very least I know you don't have a Storm."

"What?" Tsuyoshi breathed, "I—I've been here for years! How could I not have noticed…" he asked himself, feeling the hair on his arms start to stand on end as he kicked the door open for Cisco so the man could bring the kid inside.

"I know you're not Flame Sensitive but seriously? Tell me you've noticed the sunflowers at least! They're all over town! Haven't you had anyone try to give you any yet?" Cisco snapped the question at him, setting the kid down on the break room lounge he snagged a clean tea-towel off a nearby stack and started rubbing the kid's hair dry with it. "And don't try to tell me you're not feeling some kind of Sky Attraction, you were just about to hit the kid with another bucket-load! At the very least recognize what you're reacting to!"

"Not all of us are so sensitive to Flames." Zhou said unexpectedly from the doorway, having come to see what Cisco had dashed past him for. "I didn't notice until last week, and that was only because I tripped while leading baby Hibari away from his last group of chew toys. Landed face-first in the patch growing near the station, took me about three hours to get my wits back."

"Three hours? Also why didn't you TELL anyone?" Tsuyoshi asked, kneading his forehead at the onset of a sudden headache.

"Because pure as fuck and none of my business? I wasn't about to take my chances with whether or not whatever hiding Sky was harmless. Feeling pretty vindicated now that I'm getting a good look at him, that is one Famiglia no one wants to piss off."

Cisco, who'd done with toweling his charge's hair dry was frowning as he checked the kid's body temperature, pressing a hand to the kid's cheek, forehead and neck. "Oi Zhou, come here and check to see if I'm not imagining this." The former hitman muttered, a Sky should never be quite so cool to the touch. "Think I might know why he slipped under the radar if he's been here this whole time. He's been Sealed."

"Bullshit! He was Flaring hard enough for ME to feel it!" Zhou snapped, "The only way he'd be able to DO that is if he were stronger than the Sky that Sealed him! Assuming we're right about which Famiglia he belongs to that means he'd be stronger than—"

Vongola Nono.

No one uttered the name sitting over them like some kind of heavy, intangible pink elephant. None of them had to.

"We… could be wrong about his Famiglia." Tsuyoshi offered, weakly laughing at his own words.

"With that face?" Cisco snarked, tilting the kid's chin up so everyone could get a good look. "Now try telling me I was the only one who saw the flames on his forehead. That I was seeing things. Go ahead."

Zhou bit his lip and snapped his fingers, indigo flames blurring the kid's clothes away, replacing them with the pin-striped suit and iconic mantle of the famous Vongola Primo. Cisco was up out of his crouch in an instant and was pacing the room as he tried to suppress the urge to do something stupid like jump or shout. Tsuyoshi rubbed a hand over his face and backed out of the room for a moment to compose himself while Zhou let the image fade so he could run away as well, trying not to flail like a moron.

None of them had ever had quite this much exposure to a Sky, as Hitmen they'd spent their entire careers with Skies being kept at a very healthy distance AWAY from them, protected by their Guardians and Famiglia. Now they'd gone and retired and they had one land at their feet? With barely any warning? Nothing else could get three fully-grown Hitmen to lose their heads quite like landing an unexpected Sky in their midst, let alone three old-timers who'd retired! They were practically tripping over themselves over the exposure and the kid wasn't even conscious!

Sky Attraction was turning them into idiots and they weren't even getting a straight-up dose, just what was lingering around the kid like perfume. No wonder they'd found him roughing it up with the kids in the alley way, the kid was walking catnip to anyone even halfway sensitive to it!

"Dad?" a young voice called from the side of the restaurant, where it connected to the house. "What are you all doing back there?"

Cisco waffled in panic for a bit, dropped the tea-towel over the kid's face in a rather idiotic attempt at hiding him but then seemed to gather enough of his scattered wits to rush everyone from the room. Zhou yanked the door shut, and for a moment they all scrambled to make sure Takeshi didn't find them all so obviously clustered around it. The Mist crouched as if to examine the door-knob, leaving Tsuyoshi and Cisco to find their own excuses as to what they were doing.

Takeshi would take one look at them flapping uselessly and instantly know something was up. The baby Rain's endlessly curious nature would eventually bring him right back to the last place anyone wanted him at, which was right next to an unconscious Sky who's flames were only just beginning to shift to Useful. Tsuyoshi's stupidly perceptive son would recognize that everyone had been wanting to keep him away from the break room and would wonder why.

Then he'd go ahead and try to satisfy that curiosity. Never mind the number of times Tsuyoshi had tried to teach his son of the morality behind 'Curiosity killed the cat'.

"Helping put the delivery away." Tsuyoshi answered, schooling his face into an easy-going smile as he scooped his son up before the seven year old could even realize what was happening. He made sure his son didn't get so much as a glimpse of the two Flame Users behind him, they were doing a piss-poor job of keeping up appearances. Cisco might as well have replaced himself with a hard-faced marble carving of himself and Zhou was rather TOO interested in the door. The man had his face so close to the door he might as well be trying to become one with the door. He already had his right hand splayed across the wood and the whole of his right side pressed up against the door, it was as if he were trying to plaster himself to the surface.

If he hadn't known how capable they were, having personally tested their flames and abilities in the hidden dojo behind the house and restaurant, he'd have thought they were idiots.

Takeshi was nowhere near ready to meet a Sky, especially not one with Flames so pure he was already scrambling fully fledged Flame Users to this degree whilst unconscious. You had to work up to that kind of meeting or Fixation would happen, which was an unhealthy obsession with a person, place, object, concept or hobby.

Flame Users of an unusual degree of strength always had a Fixation, it was a very obvious sign of a Flame Active's potential. With how young he currently was Takeshi's personality was developing AROUND his Fixation and it was fast becoming his central focus, his reason for living. He did NOT want Takeshi to shift his current Fixation off of baseball, it had to be the safest Fixation a parent could hope for! Also so very easy to explain away as normal to both his son and the public eye.

Fixating on the Sky sleeping off a dose of Rain Flames in the break room was the recipe of a tragedy waiting to happen. It would happen so very easily too, Sky Flames practically demanded attention and would facilitate it, regardless of the wishes of the Sky in question.

There were just too many things that could go wrong.

If Takeshi Flared out his flames and teenager Rejected him, his Fixation on the Sky would mean that Takeshi would either kill himself over it or not take 'no' for an answer. No one wanted to Takeshi squash his own potential by letting him develop into a self-deluded 'Guardian'. Not only would that be unfair to Takeshi but it would be downright tragic for the Sky, who could potentially be robbed of the chance at forming a Full Harmony by a Rejected Rain chasing off any and all competitors.

Forgetting Rejection and Fixation… while Takeshi might be old enough to Harmonize, the youngest age of which an Element COULD being five years old, the teenage Sky was clearly not ready for it. His Flames, while purer than anything he'd ever felt, weren't mature enough to support a Guardian. Late bloomer? The blond was clearly years past the age a Sky would normally shift to Useful, which was around puberty.

Allowing a Harmony to form, even with just the one Guardian, with a Sky's Flame being so immature would be highly dangerous for both the Sky and Guardian. The bond would be very fragile and if broken it would ruin both parties.

Finally, even if he ignored all of that… there was still the issue of who the teenager was related to. Once upon a time Vongola Giotto had retired to Japan, to Namimori, and four hundred years later his Asian clone just happened to be running around town with the same Flame Attribute? No one would be stupid enough to believe they weren't connected. Hadn't there been a stir in the Flame Community a few years ago when two Skies and their respective Guardians swept through town? For god's sake he really SHOULD have noticed something earlier than this!

He did not want Takeshi involved with the Vongola. Not with the current rumours flooding the community. Joining the Vongola as it was now would be punching a quick one-way ticket to death. Vongola Nono was old and preparing for retirement. He had four sons, all of whom were Skies. The in-fighting would be incredible regardless of who Nono actually chose as his heir. Unless they all peaceably decided amongst themselves, which was unlikely given the youngest was a Polarized Sky, then the Vongola could consider themselves lucky if they didn't all kill themselves fighting for the opening seat.

He didn't know how this teenager was connected to the Vongola but anyone with half a brain and working eyes and senses would recognize his claim. A possible direct decedent of Giotto's? One who could very well have inherited his flame? Might actually develop his famous skills and abilities? Ricardo Secundo's decedents couldn't hold a candle against that. If they didn't already know about him the Vongola would bend over backwards to get their hands on him and the kid, and any of his Guardians, would be tossed right into the middle of the ensuing blood-bath.

Tsuyoshi simultaneously wanted to bundle the young Sky up to hide him away from a world that would kill him and toss the teenager out the nearest window.

"Dad?" Takeshi asked, no doubt noticing his uncharacteristic silence, his sharp hazel gold eyes locked on his own. "What's wrong? Did something happen?"

"Kids fighting in the alley again." Tsuyoshi grumbled with real irritation. "I'm going to get you your milk, you're going to go right back up to bed and then Cisco is going to spend the rest of the night helping me drop everyone's brats off home. Okay?"

"Okay daddy." Takeshi giggled, face relaxing out of the mildly terrifying look of laser intensity, and into a happy little grin. He wished the apple had fallen a little further away from the tree, that hadn't been very comfortable to weather. Though now he supposed he knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of the look he'd been getting complaints about his entire life.

"Edith?" he called out to his cashier as he entered the kitchen of the Restaurant and rounding the counter. "Keep an eye on him while I get his milk?"

"Yeah, sure. Not a problem." The woman answered with a grin, taking his son from him and seating him on a bit of clear space next to the cash register. "What are you doing up this late anyway Mister? You should be in bed!"

"I WAS in bed!" Takeshi protested as he tried wiggling off the counter. "But then I woke up and then I felt all warm and funny!"

"Warm and funny?" she asked, pressing a palm to his forehead. "He's not sick is he?" she asked Tsuyoshi, looking away from his squirming son for a moment to give him a look of concern.

"No. He's not sick, he's restless." Tsuyoshi muttered as he filled a small pot with milk and started charging it with his flames.

There were advantages to being a Rain, one of which was that it made parenting a much easier job than any of the other Flame Active's parents enjoyed and he took shameless advantage of it. Takeshi thought he really liked milk and Tsuyoshi was only too happy to let him continue thinking that. One day Tsuyoshi's flames wouldn't work on Takeshi, his own Flames would eventually negate the effects, but for now he would enjoy the peace Tranquilized Milk would buy him while he still could.

Sleepy night time for Takeshi~!

"You realize this is why Yun-san calls you a dirty cheat?" Edith smirked lightly as she took the mug of warmed milk he passed her and handed it to his suddenly not squiring son. Takeshi barely let her steady it before his little hands were eagerly tangling around hers to grasp at it. He almost fell off the counter as his mouth attached to the lip of the mug, and she had to steady him as he finished it and went limp in her arms.

"Like she isn't cheating by having every cop in town chasing after her son?" He asked wryly, cleaning up after himself. "Jealousy is such an ugly thing."

Extricating the now empty mug out of Takeshi's slack grip Edith held onto it and passed the seven year old back to his father when he came back around the counter to fetch him. "What's going on back there anyway? We don't usually make this much fuss when there's something happening out back."

"Big crowd." Tsuyoshi answered with a straight face. "Tell the others to avoid the break room for now, it's going to be a long night."

"No need to tell me twice." Edith grimaced, recalling an incident that would have left her black and blue had it not been for her Affinity. "Bloody Clouds."

"They're not ALL that bad." Tsuyoshi defended as he left, only hearing the snort he got in return for the comment.

They weren't, Takeshi's mother was living proof of that.

Akamine Sunaho might have been quick to reach for a dagger and even quicker with her throwing darts but she was nowhere near as violent as the little Cloud that called Namimori home. They'd been loose partners of sorts, it was always easier to complete hits with a partner, and lovers on the side. One day after months of no contact she'd dropped a baby in his lap, his baby, and asked him what he wanted to do about it. She could arrange for him to be raised by someone else but she couldn't keep him. She couldn't DO kids. Did he want the baby?

Typically of a Cloud she drifted in and out of their lives, leaving gifts and money. Accepting the packets of photographs Tsuyoshi gave her and leaving a few of her own for him to share with their son, which mostly looked like mugshots, she never could take a decent photo. She liked having the excuse of not having an email address to justify her visits so he never offered his after the first and last time she 'forgot' the password to her account. She ghosted around for a few days each time to get distant looks at the life she'd brought into the world before drifting away again.

She probably had a lot more to do with his former clients leaving him alone than the protection of simply settling down in Namimori offered him but she never let on. All a Cloud needed was some kind of anchor to keep them grounded and that violence would eventually bleed itself out into the serene drifting they were famous for. He hoped their local Cloud would find his sooner rather than later, his tantrums were starting to get out of hand.

Tsuyoshi sighed as he tucked his son into bed and considered the thought of donating a supply of Rain infused tea to the Hibari family for the express purpose of keeping Hibari Kyouya sedated. The kid was close to needing either that, a group of people willing to be the kid's punching bags, or a goddamned Seal of his own. If he was going to be donating Flames to the Hibari household he was going to have to get them to shell out for the container at the very least, he was NOT a charity!

"WHERE IS HE? Cisco's voice yelped from the restaurant.

Safe in the knowledge that Takeshi would likely sleep like a log until the next morning Tsuyoshi finished tucking his son in and made it back to the break room in time to see Cisco attempting to, and failing, at climbing through the small window in the break room. The open window. The window that had been closed just a few minutes ago.

The young Sky was gone.

OoO

Tsuna's heart beat a staccato of excitement mixed with a kind of terrified accomplishment. He hadn't known what to expect when the hair on the back of his neck had started standing on end in the seconds before he'd been hit with the strangely glowing water. He'd taken a few seconds too long to realize that the water that had hit him was SUPPOSED to have laid him flat but his go-to tactic of dealing with adults had still worked. They hadn't even questioned it when he'd 'Passed out' and had swallowed the act. Hook, line and sinker.

They'd even talked over his head, unwittingly supplying him with desperately needed information.

Sky. Guardians. Storm. Flame Sensitive. Sky Attraction. Famiglia. Sealed, they'd used the same word HE'D given it when it had happened two years ago. It really WAS a seal! Flaring. They'd noticed his sunflowers, where they really all over town?

The man who'd picked him up from the alleyway had ignored everyone else. Had called him a Sky. What did that mean? In context Sky Attraction was probably what he'd been calling his 'allure'. It was nice to finally put a name to what the hell he'd been doing his whole life. Flame Sensitive, again in the same context was probably the ability to SENSE flames. Famiglia? He'd have to look that one up but he did NOT belong to ANYONE. He was his own person thank-you-very-much! Flaring hard enough for someone to notice? That was probably exactly what it sounded like. Flaring of Flames.

What the hell was a Guardian though? Storm? He had so many questions that he almost wanted to turn right back around and GRILL them for answers but—

Something inside him was telling him it would not be a good idea. He wouldn't be welcome, the man with the bucket didn't want him there and he was very obviously the owner of the place.

The man who'd been fussing over him was another thing, Tsuna almost wouldn't have been surprised if the man had started clucking, he'd been that fussy. It had been rather uncomfortable to pretend unconsciousness and let the man continue with it and the other man, the Chinese one they'd called 'Zhou' had done something that had set his hair to raising on end.

Heat washing over his skin in a warm wave, familiar in the same way English was. A pin-striped suit and mantle washing over him in what he could only describe felt like a...

Sunset.

Tsuna shivered and it had nothing to do with his water-logged clothes. If anything the water he'd been hit with had been strangely warm. Almost like a concentrated version of his tea. Unclasping his hands from where they'd been unconsciously rubbing at his own arms Tsuna cupped a hand under a crooked elbow and squeezed a bit of moisture out of the wet cloth. So, he hadn't been imagining it. The water the man had hit him, and the rest of the brawling group, really HAD been glowing. Almost like his tea did, only a little bit stronger and it was more obvious with the change in colour.

He shrugged out of his jacket and squeezed the water out of it onto the ground in front of him, he slipped it back on as he crouched down to examine the small puddle he'd created and stared, mesmerized by the faint blue flames licking off the rippling surface in soothing patterns. Tsuna couldn't resist pressing his palm into the shallow puddle and he felt his eyelids slide down to half-mast as he watched the hypnotizing flickers of flame dance across the back of his hand. He was starting to realize why the teenagers he'd been fighting with had dropped to the ground like they had, it was surprisingly hard to resist the effects it was having on him now that he wasn't surrounded by strangers.

He was calming down.

The fear that had him transforming into a teenage version of himself was declining. The irrational anger that had roared through him when surrounded by the teenage bullies was dying down. Even the rapid climb of irritation and excitement were fading away and in its place he felt… content? It was weird but he couldn't even find it in himself to be scared when usually he'd have been paranoid as hell over an outside source being able to sway his emotions like this.

It was like he'd been hit with a calming potion, it was even similar in colour. Wrong consistency and clarity for it though, even for a watered down potion. Almost without thinking he felt himself close his eyes as his own Flames reacted, mimicking the soothing ripple of the flames he had his hand planted in and muscle by muscle he felt the stress bleed out of him.

The tight, anxious grip on his flame loosened and his Flame unfurled in a gentle wave.

Tsuna tipped his head back to lean against the wall he propped himself up against in sheer relief and sighed, opening his eyes to the star-speckled sky above him. He didn't have to look down at himself to know that he'd just shifted back to his regular self, he could feel his clothes shifting around him to drape wetly over his now-smaller frame.

What a night!

Dragging himself home wasn't easy but he managed.

He shrugged out of his dad's old jacket halfway and wrapped it around him like a blanket, kicking his shoes off to hang them around his neck by the laces. He rolled up the jeans as high as he could, cinched the belt tight, punctured a new hole in it to hold it all up and then twisted the water out of as much of it as he could. He peeked in through the veranda doors of his house to see if his mother was still awake and let himself in when he was sure the coast was clear.

He stepped out of the pants as soon as he was inside, wiped his feet on them and used them as a cloth to wipe away the worst of the dirt and grime he'd picked up. The clothes he'd borrowed had been stuffed into a plastic bag and shoved into his school satchel. Hopefully his mother wouldn't find them until he got the chance to clean and put them back. A trip to the bathroom, and a long soak later and he was crawling into bed with his notebook and a pen. He wrote down everything he'd learned in the last few hours and ran his fingertips over the freshly written words, the precious information he'd gained. He didn't think he'd forget the events of the last few hours but he wasn't about to take the chance.

He'd turned himself into a teenager and back again. Aurors hadn't come to help fix him. Did they just not exist in Japan or…

Maybe the Flames weren't magic.

Pressing the notebook to his chest Tsuna pulled himself up into a tight ball and rested his head on his knees. Where did that leave him if his Flames weren't magic? He had proof that magic existed. Proof that his 'dreams' of living as Harry Potter were at least real in some way was in the fact that people understood him when he spoke in what he knew was English. If he'd dreamed up a whole language and convinced himself it was English, others wouldn't understand him! At the very least he wouldn't be fluent enough to convince a Hitman he wasn't lying, thereby saving his own life!

A certainty was trying to make itself known to him, one that he didn't want to listen to, one he wanted to push away and ignore until he had irrefutable proof that he was wrong. He didn't want to be wrong! What did he have to look forward to if magic wasn't—

He was confused. He'd had a long, stressful night and he wasn't thinking straight. What else COULD these Flames be if not magic? Also he'd finally found someone, SEVERAL someone's who could not only see his Flames but were just like him! So one out of the three of them hadn't been very happy to see him but he could work around one person. Harry Potter had been able to work around Snape hadn't he? At least Bucket-man didn't seem to actively hate him, he was just… wary? Cautious? Not scared but intimidated by who he might 'belong' to?

Well he didn't have to be scared, Tsuna belonged to himself, not anyone else! Except maybe his mother, but only as her son and not as a THING!

He'd have to locate the place again, retrace the steps he and the group of teenagers had taken to get to where they'd been hit with water. It had been some kind of restaurant, a traditional one given the uniform everyone he'd seen had been wearing, and what little he'd seen of the inside. That left only about every restaurant in town. That was going to be easy. Not.

Bucket-man had been familiar, if he could only remember where he'd seen the man it would be easier to track him and the rest of them down. He could lurk around as himself, keep his flames under the Seal if people could sense him, and collect information to his heart's content. His act of Accidental Magic was the luckiest thing to happen to him since… he didn't even know when! It was the perfect disguise! He was pretty sure he could replicate the feat without half-killing himself. Talk about a left-handed stroke of luck though! Next time he'd very much like his next dose of good luck to be delivered without the heart-attack, please and thank you whatever god was listening.

Flopping over to his side he rolled and buried his face into the cocoon of blankets he had wrapped around himself. "… I need a computer." he muttered into the blankets. He wouldn't have to fight to get to a computer at every break or close his browser every time he so much as had someone peer over his shoulder. He could save documents without worrying if a copy would save onto a computer instead of the thumb-drive he might absent-mindedly lose.

He could enjoy his breaks when he had them if he had a computer at him, he could do his browsing from the privacy of his own home. Would his mother let him hook the house up to the internet? He shouldn't have destroyed the Hitman's camera, he could have SOLD it! Or kept it, would have been useful just then, one picture of the people he was looking for and a Google image search and it would be easier to find Mr Bucket and his workers. Stupid temper!

At least he'd discovered a way to keep that temper in check. A soothing trick to go with the energy trick he'd discovered in the hospital, one that wouldn't leave him unconscious the way using up his flames did. He could sit still and just let himself THINK for once, he didn't need to be up and walking around, uselessly burning up the energy he needed TO think. His mind was blessedly clear, he had the warmth he needed to function and he didn't have to get up and run across town for it. It was amazing!

The more he dug into how his flames worked and the more times he pushed himself, he gained more ways to defend and protect himself. He'd gained another face to hide behind. According to the story he'd fed to hitman who'd kidnapped him, seven year old Sawada Tsunayoshi was a blond with amber eyes. The seven year old 'Harry Potter' that had been Sawada Tsunayoshi's 'body double' had brown hair and eyes; and now he had a seventeen year old blond with amber eyes to play— work with.

Burrowing himself so he was lying flat on his stomach he pulled out his notebook again, flipped to a fresh page and wrote the number seventeen down into the middle of it. That was how old his other self was, and to be honest he pretty much FELT that old on the inside. He didn't feel like he was seven, he'd always felt that much older. Being a teenager had felt comfortable in a way he'd never felt outside of his dreams.

School had always felt like it was killing him by way of a thousand paper cuts, one for every bit of stupidly boring work he had to do. A cut for every time a classmate got an answer wrong. Another for each teacher who though they had to dumb things down even further for him, even though he'd gone ahead and invited that kind treatment by acting like the brain-dead "Dame-Tsuna" he needed to be to keep himself safe. Stupid nick-name, the only time his peers showed how clever they were was when they were figuring out ways to make each-other miserable. Did the name they'd chosen for him have to be so very catchy? He'd be old and grey by the time he managed to shake it!

He needed a name for the self he'd created tonight, lest someone ELSE name him. He wasn't about to get stuck with something stupid when he'd have to teach himself to answer to it!

Jyuu nana… no. Sounding out the number seventeen as a name was just stupid. He couldn't use his own name either, quickest way ever to get found out. No English names, least of all 'Harry Potter'. He didn't want anyone to connect his seven year old 'body double' with the new face.

No classmate's names either.

Looking down at the mess of notes and doodles he'd written Tsuna huffed. With the way he was going he'd be up all night trying to come up with a name! He would also give himself a crick in the neck with the way he was hunched over his notebook. He tossed his notebook onto his desk and extricated himself out of his nest of blankets so he could sit at his desk. He pulled his notebook to him from where it had landed face open on his desk and paused, tilting his head to the side.

Well, that was one way to come up with a name.

He'd written his name down in English, block capital letters and his notebook had fallen open upside down. When he'd looked at it, for a moment there he'd tricked himself and read it as 'Natsu'. It was a nice and simple name, short and easy to remember. It would also be easy to respond to because it already had half of his name in there anyway and since his teenage form had been an accident?

Jiko Natsu.

Underlining the name Tsuna closed his notebook, tossed his pen across the desk and called it a night. He'd been up for long enough and he was sure he'd be able to sleep WITH his flames running through him like this, it was like he'd had a nice fresh-from-the-cauldron dose of Calming Potion. He wondered how long it would take to wear off and how far he could push it without dropping into 'nap time'.

He guessed he'd find out when he woke up.

OoO

Morning dawned over the Hibari household and to say that it wasn't welcome would have been an understatement.

To celebrate Kyouya making his first friend Hibari Satoshi had matched his brother shot-for shot of sake and had steadily emptied the bottles Yun had unearthed from god-knew where.

They'd drunk more than they had in a good long while and as such were suffering the expected consequences. He had his face plastered to the Kotatsu as he waited for the painkillers to kick in and had already emptied two hangover 'cures' trying to alleviate the symptoms. He had to be at work in less than an hour, he was in no condition to drive himself there and the sound of the Taxi approaching the house would probably kill him.

Minoru, the lucky bastard, was still out cold. He didn't have to worry about wake-up calls or work as he had the day off.

Kyouya had dragged himself out of bed looking like he'd been dragged backwards by his feet through a bush, minus the leaves and dirt. Still wearing his pyjamas and wrapped up in a coat he was squinting at the world and hobbling like HE'D been the one to drink himself into a stupor the night before. He'd seated himself at the Kotatsu with a drunken wobble and followed his father's example, dropping his overly warm face to the table with a thunk that made his father wince in both pain and sympathy.

Yun shuffled in after him, looking about as worse for wear.

"Word of advice." She croaked to her son as she sat next to him. "Don't drink if you know you're under the influence of Sky Attraction. The hang-over just isn't worth it."

Kyouya grunted, not understanding what she was saying but agreeing with it for the sake of getting her to Stop. Talking.

"Mercy..." Satoshi whispered, trying not to move.

Yun listed over sideways and rubbed her face with her hands. Flame Drunk. She'd gotten Flame Drunk, probably by getting so close to the sunflowers when she'd 'visited' the Sawada house, and had then proceeded to drink her way through what had to be about two thirds of the contents of the bottles in the room.

Just how pure were Sawada Tsunayoshi's flames? Her own Flame had unconsciously Flared and Flared trying to get his attention and he'd been snoozing away the whole time like the innocent little lamb he was, completely oblivious to it. Now she was suffering the consequences. She really shouldn't have gotten that close to the flowers, or even the house. Not THAT quickly. She KNEW she was weak to regular garden-variety Flame-Attraction and she'd still done it! If her son had come home Flame Drunk it had probably been for a pretty damned good reason, why the hell had she gone raring in like that? Half-cocked and ready to kill?

God, Sky Attraction really DID make idiots out of Flame Users!

She… was going to have to steal some of those sunflowers at the first opportunity she got. She had to make SURE she wasn't going to flood herself drunk on her own Flames like that again, make sure Kyouya didn't as well.

If only to spare herself and her son the inevitable migraine afterwards.

The honking of a car reverberated through the house.

Yun curled up into a fetal ball with a whimper, Satoshi cradled his head and Kyouya rolled off the kotatsu and under it.

"Takesushi delivery~!"


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, seven pages of PRYING to get this fic to talk to me and then suddenly the rest of the story flows like goddamned silk. What is my life even?
> 
> Drop a review if you have a question and be sure to SIGN IN if you want it answered. I refuse to answer any more anon questions when I can’t answer directly.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed the story! See you next chapter!

Adding Magic to the list of things Tsuna was researching felt like he was living a balancing act. He was digging into the mystery of his flames, looking for any sign of the Magical world AND living life as his regular old self all at the same time. With that in mind, Tsuna grudgingly allowed himself some time to simply rest, and make sure he was well and truly recovered from the stunt that had him turning into a teenager. The Calming Down trick he'd learned following his epic meltdown more than helped. He could now safely wind himself down from the frizzing heights of energy his Healing and Energy 'trick' brought him up to.

Good thing too, as he'd never quite noticed just how badly that particular ability was winding him up emotionally. He wasn't jumping at the slightest surprise anymore and his anxiety levels dropped down to an all-time low. He could safely practice his newly discovered abilities and utilize them whenever he wanted to, in between folding to the urge to nap.

The sleepy-time was most likely the cost of the temper tantrum that had turned him into a teenager. As much as he'd like to grumble about it? This was the payback for letting his emotions run out of control; he _needed_ the sleep. He'd needed the forced down-time and not even he could argue just how amazingly lucky he'd been to get away from the accident without a scratch.

He was going to pretend a healer had _ordered_ the bed rest and sleep off the effects like the good boy he really should be, but totally _wasn't_. He was going to be happy that he hadn't done himself any permanent damage and try not to tempt fate by being thankless to whatever god had been looking out for him at that particular moment. He made sure to show how appreciative he was the next time he visited the local shrine and dropped the entirety of his pocket money into the donation box for the favour.

Bless and thank you.

He purposely made himself wait until he was no longer falling asleep in random places before he started 'playing' with his flames once more. This time though, he wasn't about to tempt fate or whatever, he made sure he was tucked away in his bowling alley each time and didn't dare to try using his flames at home anymore.

People could _sense_ flames.

That meant he couldn't give into laziness anymore and practice in his room. No more simply closing his curtains to make sure no one caught him playing with fire. There were people out there that would know what was going on anyway, and he had no idea how they'd react to him. Would they fall all over themselves like Bucket-man and his friends had? Or would they be like the bullies he had to duck every day?

Or would they be like the Hitman who'd wanted to use him against his own father?

It still didn't make much sense to him, but the pieces of that particular puzzle were slowly coming together and once he had enough of them they would eventually fall into place to form a full picture. Given his luck, that would probably happen right before he needed to save his own skin again. He really was starting to step into Harry Potter's shoes, wasn't he? Pulling off all the death defying stunts and solving deadly mysteries all before he was even physically a teenager! Without even wanting to get caught up in it at all, damn his curiosity!

Regardless, the revelation that people could sense flames was something that had him wondering if he should pull up the flowers in his garden. At one point, he'd found himself standing in his garden, trowel in hand, wavering over which flowers he should start with. Did he want to get rid of the poppies first? The sunflowers? Get the big ones out of the way before getting to the little ones? Or should he get rid of the roses his mother fawned over each morning? Do the hard part and get it over and done with before his mother found out he intended to clear the garden of the plants touched with his flame?

In the end he hadn't been able to make himself choose, or even start prying up the goddamned petunias, which were the flowers he was the least fond of. Instead, he absently weeded the garden as he tried to convince himself he was taking the time to choose where he was going to start. He let the gentle warmth coming off the flowers soak into his body and tried very hard not to wonder what he'd do without the comfort of his garden so readily available to him.

When he tried starting with his little vegetable patch, his traitorous mind turned to thinking up excuses as to why he shouldn't pull up his garden.

His mother would pout forever over the loss. The neighbors would notice too and wouldn't it be more suspicious if his house was the _only_ one on the street without flowers? He'd been trading seeds for plants with everyone so maybe he could keep his sunflowers at least, they'd been there the longest and practically _everyone_ had those! He might keep the roses too; his mother loved them too much to just let him pry up the bush without a fight… Did he even have to get rid of the garden at all? It WAS hidden behind a rather tall wall and the effects weren't all THAT noticeable.

Hadn't 'Zhou' mentioned having to land 'face first' into a patch of them to notice?

Maybe all he had to really do was make sure his sunflowers really were all over the place, grow them in areas of Namimori that were bare of them and make his house the proverbial needle in the haystack. He could do that while looking for Bucket-man and his friends, couldn't he? He'd be walking around town anyway; it would be taking care of two birds with one trip.

A whole month passed by while Tsuna turned the idea over in his head and tried to poke holes in his own reasoning. He planted sunflower seeds everywhere that looked like it could use a touch of brightening up, and scoured the internet and bookshelves for any information on magic. He looked for Bucket Man and his restaurant. He gave his own house another look-over for anything on his father or his father's boss. The words Cedef and Vongola still meant nothing more than a made-up word and a type of seafood.

He was almost two months away from his kidnapping when the peaceful investigating he'd been doing was abruptly shattered with the introduction of a new presence in his life, one he really should have seen coming. He'd known it would happen eventually, but he'd been hoping against hope that his mother might put it off for a while. His mother had made a friend one day while shopping, bumping into a woman who also had a little boy of her own and the two had gotten along like a house on fire.

The following day, Tsuna was at home and jolted out of a justified nap and realized someone was standing over him. Every individual strand of hair on his body stood on end. This was NOT his mother. This also wasn't Hashimoto-san. Chinese. Dark hair worn in a thick braid with a straight fringe and bangs framing her face. Formal kimono. Blue eyes. She wasn't anyone he recognized but this woman was in his house. Leaning over him. Watching him sleep and the frantic expression on her face at getting caught in the act was setting off his widgy-meter into overdrive _._

Tangled up as he was in his bundle of blankets, he couldn't give the woman the kick to the face she so dearly deserved so instead, Tsuna did the next best thing. He scrambled for the pepper spray he kept under his pillow as per his mother's insistence. He hadn't known pepper spray could give him the comfort he didn't know he'd needed until the exact moment he reached for it and it fit into his grip like an old friend. You learned something new every day.

The woman who'd been leaning over him reeled back screeching and clutching at her face, having caught a thoroughly earned and deserved face-full of pepper. Tsuna rolled out of the confines of his bed, shook himself free of his bedding and was out the door and running. He took the stairs at a breakneck pace and scrambled to get out of the house before the woman could regain her bearings.

" _Tian!_ Wait, I'm so sorry! Please forgive me!" The nutcase called out, staggering out into the hallway after him. Right, he wasn't about to fall for that, not when the woman was somehow navigating without her eyes with enough accuracy to follow after him.

At speed.

He ducked her blind and wandering grasp, and forced his fumbling fingers to dig into his scarf for his flask. He scrabbled at the cap with trembling fingers gone numb in fear and mostly busy also holding the pepper spray. What was this woman doing in his _house_? He did NOT want her anywhere near him! The reaction was primeval, nearly violent. It was instinctive and Tsuna was shaking from it. The sensation felt like it was coming from so deep inside him it might as well have been radiating from his bones.

No, no, no, no _NO!_

Was this someone else sent to capture or kill him? He wasn't ready! It hadn't even been a year yet since his kidnapping! Tsuna gave up trying to open up his flask in favour of making sure he made it down the stairs alive, slipping it into his pocket for easy access but making sure to keep a good hold on his only 'weapon'.

He was so focused on what he was doing and what he was running away from that he wasn't really paying much attention to anything outside that immediate goal. As such, when he hit the bottom step and turned for the front door, he bowled over the formally-dressed kid who'd apparently been waiting for him there. Tsuna got the impression of dark hair and wide grey eyes and suddenly he was rolled over, a moment of dizzy motion later and the familiar looking nine year old had him pinned to the ground with one arm while the other—

A wooden tonfa was descending.

Rolling desperately to avoid it, Tsuna broke out of the hold pinning him and pushed himself up against the wall for leverage. He gritted his teeth, brought up the pepper spray and… froze.

The nine year old he'd met at the police station also froze, just a few millimeters away from slamming his weapon down on him. There was a long pause before the dark haired boy pulled back the tonfa and slipped it back into the voluminous sleeve of his Haori. "Wao~" the boy said, sounding slightly impressed.

"Tsu-kun~! You're awake! I found a friend for you to play with!" his mother's voice floated from the direction of the kitchen. She giggled, popping out from the relative safety of the kitchen to kneel down to eye level with the other boy and introduced him. "This is Hibari Kyouya-kun, he's Yun-san's son, remember I told you about her? Kyo-kun this is my son Sawada Tsunayoshi, treat him well~!"

"Y-Yun… san?" Tsuna stuttered, feeling the hair on his arms rise and bodily stiffening as the enormity of what he'd just done hit him.

What the hell? Had he just _pepper-sprayed_ his mother's new friend!?

" _TIAN! I'M SO SORRY FOR STARTLING YOU!"_ The dark haired woman exclaimed as she staggered down the stairs. _"PLEASE FORGIVE ME!"_

Tsuna jolted into action and rolled over onto his hands and knees, scrabbling back up the stairs on all fours with a yelp. Dropping the pepper spray, he went to stop the woman from dropping into a kowtow halfway down the stairs. _"I FORGIVE YOU! I'M SORRY! PLEASE GO WASH YOUR FACE!"_

Tsuna's official introduction to Hibari Yun and her son Hibari Kyouya left a little something to be desired but honestly? He'd probably needed the warning that their introduction had provided him and now he had some understanding of exactly what kind of crazy he could expect from the pair. He didn't think he was ever going to forget it.

Sitting crouched just outside the bathroom door on his heels, Tsuna half-hid behind the doorjamb, listening to his mother and her friend apologize to each other along with the sounds of muffled whimpering coming from the bathroom. He bit down the urge to join in and apologize again, knowing from the last ten minutes that the woman would stop washing the pepper out of her eyes in order to comfort _him_. She really had quite a strong 'mothering' personality, trying to comfort him even though she had to be in quite a bit of pain, poor woman! How had he ever mistaken her for an assassin? He was _never_ going to live this down!

"I—can you ask her never to wake me up like that again?" he mumbled at his 'play date', clamping down another apology and wondered how the taller boy could just lean on the wall opposite the bathroom and just watch the proceedings with such amusement. "Also I just pepper-sprayed your mother, shouldn't you be angry instead of laughing?"

"She should have known better, even Small Animals bite when startled."

"Small Animals? … Is this you calling me a herbivore again?"

OoO

Having an occasional playmate didn't really change much in Tsuna's life as far as his regular day to day activities were concerned.

Play-dates were arranged sporadically and with several days of prior warning. Doubtlessly so as not to overly startle him again. He would sometimes spot the older boy walking to school and back, and would occasionally join him, taking the other boy's appearance as a silent invitation to walk with him to school. The dark haired boy was oddly relaxing to be around and joining the nine year old on the walk to school and back gave him the added benefit of a bully-free journey.

The dark haired boy never demand anything from him and being 'friends' with Hibari Kyouya was almost like having a particularly aloof cat. He had his snacks when he came over, entertained himself with the colouring books he brought and left when he had enough.

Though the boy's personality might be rather feline, his thought process wasn't anything cat-like at ALL. The boy had the mentality of a werewolf, well… almost. Everyone, according to Kyouya, was either a Herbivore, Carnivore, or some variation there-of. It was, at first glance, such a simplistic way to view the world but the more time he spent around the odd nine year old the more he came to realize how vividly rich that imagination was.

The colouring books gave it away.

He would never just pick up a pencil or crayon and start colouring in. Kyouya would look at the picture as a whole, flip through the book, think about where the animal was and what it was doing, and THEN he'd start. Sometimes he'd incorporate the picture on the other page of the colouring books, turning two separate pages into a bigger picture.

A tiger with blood around its mouth and on its paws, fur dusty in some places and muddy in others. Claws added in with exquisite detail. The horse on the next page over sporting great big bite marks all along its rear. A trail of blood connecting the two pictures. Just sitting next to the boy and colouring in with him took the both of them on a journey with the animals they were colouring in and when they came out of it they were finished with a 'story' and it always felt like waking up after a long, restful nap.

"Why didn't the tiger go for the neck?" Tsuna had asked that time, pausing in the middle of 'bandaging' the poor horse.

"It's not dead yet." Kyouya replied with a smirk.

"… what a sloppy tiger." Tsuna tsked, "Lucky horsie."

He managed to startle a snort out of Kyouya and the other boy had to look away for a long moment before he could school his face back into indifference. Tsuna muffled his own amusement at the reaction behind the colouring book.

All in all, having a play mate… didn't take as much out of him as he'd been expecting. He enjoyed 'playing' with Hibari Kyouya and the other boy liked keeping his distance most of the time. He fit into Tsuna's world like a jigsaw puzzle piece snapping into place. Tsuna didn't have to adjust his own life one whit to make room for him; he made room for himself just fine and ended up bringing something to the table on his own. Tsuna might never have learned how to relax in the presence of another child had it not been for his first playmate.

Kyouya might never become the shielding presence in his life that Ron and Hermione had been, but he didn't have to be. Tsuna wasn't in such desperate need for a wall to hide behind or famous.

At least he hoped he wasn't, he didn't think he could deal with being the next 'Boy Who Lived'. If he ended up getting invited into the Magical World and then told he'd survived a Killing Curse as a baby, he might just choose to walk out there and then. Regardless… he didn't need a Ron or Hermione to hide behind, much as he might want them at times.

He would stand against the world on his own two feet and face it without flinching. He'd been going about his life wrong for a long time and he hadn't even realized it until he calmed down. He could now recognize _exactly_ how miserable he'd been making himself. Now that he was able to think clearly without having to burn off the warmth he needed, he was always coming up with ideas on how to improve his situation.

He didn't have to pretend to be useless if he didn't want to be or maintain the facade of idiocy. It was years past the time his flames had been sealed, and his decline in health and intelligence were a matter of public record. He would keep English under his proverbial hat for now but there was absolutely no reason he couldn't improve his grades to match his classmates.

He didn't have to dumb himself down to match a non-existent Dudley, there were no Dursleys looking over his shoulder. The rumour that he was a body double for the real 'Sawada Tsunayoshi' was out there and any Hitmen looking at his grades would see a slow improvement if he started now. It would look like the 'body double' he was pretending to be had learned enough Japanese to match school records.

He was making himself suffer needlessly for no reason; it was about time he started picking himself up.

OoO

The first break Tsuna had in the multiple of mysteries he was chasing came in the form of one of his classmates. Yamamoto Takeshi already stood out of the crowd for being one of the more popular kids in school; he was athletic, his grades were constantly in the top tier of their class when he actually put in the effort, and on top of that he was NICE. People flocked to the hazel-eyed boy by the droves and not a single one was ever pushed back or ignored.

He'd have gone insane within three days of the attention Takeshi got; the other boy had the patience of a saint.

Tsuna, who didn't particularly like the crowds and spent more time than he liked to admit actively trying to avoid his peers, noticed something one lazy afternoon in the middle of a PE class that had him _joining_ the crowd for once.

Blue.

Tsuna had been working on the ability to sense flames, now that he knew such an ability existed, he couldn't help but try it himself. He'd so far only 'sensed' his flowers and he'd half-convinced himself that had been wishful thinking. An argument had broken out amongst the kids playing baseball and Tsuna had been in the perfect position, benched on the sidelines as he was, to play witness to the faint ripple of blue flames that washed away from Yamamoto halfway into the argument he'd waded into.

Tsuna folded his notebook over his pencil and immediately decided the homework he'd been working on wasn't urgent anymore. He didn't need to free up time after school, he could do his homework later. Instead he focused on the sensation that had caught his attention and the ripple of colour he'd caught in the corner of his eye. The colour was faint; Tsuna would have almost believed it to be a trick of the light, would have blamed the washed-out and barely-there rippling of blue on a heat haze had it not been for two things. Firstly, he'd sensed it before seeing it and then… the reactions of the people who'd been arguing told their own tale. The two teams that had been arguing over a foul stopped raising their voices. All of a sudden the group energy seemed to fall completely flat. Some of the kids even struggled against yawns and more than one sported the long-distance stare of the extremely sleepy.

Yamamoto Takeshi had just done to his classmates what Bucket Man had done to him and the teenagers that had been fighting in the alleyway outside that restaurant. It didn't look like he'd done it on purpose, if anything it looked like a bout of Accidental Magic, but it had the same effect as the bucket of water Tsuna had been hit with, albeit a hell of a lot weaker.

More importantly… the kid bore a striking resemblance to the Bucket Man he'd been searching for. Takeshi was a carbon copy of Bucket-Man in miniature and it had taken literally being slapped in the face with the clue for him to recognize the resemblance.

He was going to have to do something about the Tunnel Vision. He couldn't believe he'd missed such an important clue with it staring him in the face every day. Literally staring him in the face every day. Takeshi had been one of the kids who'd been hit rather heavily by what he now knew was correctly called 'Sky Attraction'. Before that, all he'd previously noticed was that the hazel-eyed boy was that he was the tallest kid in his crowd of stalkers.

This was one of the downsides to using his flame to keep himself awake and aware that he hadn't really anticipated, though it should have been obvious. His regular flame had him focused on a single goal or task, watered down as it was... wasn't it lucky that the singular focus didn't filter down as much with the warmth? He'd take a bit of tunnel vision if that was what it took to function day to day.

He'd just have to work on keeping a broader outlook. Observe his surroundings and take a better note of who he was surrounded by, what they looked like and what they were doing. It would be difficult to learn but… he needed to know how not to shut out the world. The Hitman that had kidnapped him had done so after weeks of observation, had broken into his house at one point and had even stolen pictures out of the family album all without anyone noticing.

That wasn't something Tsuna wanted to happen again. Ever.

He could set up a warning system, leave little things around the house in specific locations that would warn him of an intruder in the house. Wind-chimes at all the windows so he'd know which ones were open and which were closed and would have a warning should one open without him knowing it. Simply locking the doors wouldn't do any good, his mother came in and out of every room without a care in the world, she'd simply unlock any door he locked. He couldn't exactly rely on her to notice something out of the ordinary either; she'd proven herself not-so-competent on that aspect. Maybe that said something of the level of stealth skills the Hitman in question possessed but Tsuna had a feeling that it hadn't taken much to break into his house at all.

Great, he'd just added Home Security to his already long to-do list. He could do that when he got home though, there wasn't any rush. Any hitman that tried to confront him as he was today would get a rather _warm_ surprise. He was topped up on flames, his wits were sharp with it and he would be keeping an eye out. For now he could put home security aside while he followed the one useful 'lead' he'd 'found'.

He was going to follow Yamamoto Takeshi home and see if that lead him to Bucket Man and his restaurant. There had to be a familial relation there somewhere. The two looked far too alike to be anything other than immediate family.

Tsuna left the classroom as quickly as he usually did at the end of the school day.

Instead of retreating to the library this time though, he tried something he'd been practicing in his bowling-alley hideout. Hiding in a utility closet, Tsuna closed his eyes and compacted the flames in his system into a tiny ball. His mental grip on that ball of heat was tight, the practice he'd put into it giving him a firm grip even as his body felt like he'd just doused with a bucket of ice-cold water. Allowing himself a small trickle of flame, he took a moment to adjust to the difference being nearly flameless had on his perception and took a deep, steadying breath before leaving the closet.

He had to take a moment to steady his spinning head by the time he got to his seat by leaning his forehead on his desk but… Not a single blessed soul paid any attention to him when he'd stepped back into the classroom.

Digging his scarf, gloves and jacket out of his bag, Tsuna wrapped himself up as tightly as he could and waited, eventually following his target when he came in to collect his things. Keeping the grip he had on the flames became something of a trial in patience when he remembered Takeshi was on the elementary school baseball team; luckily the baseball field had a sheltered seating area. It wasn't so hard to keep his attention on the other boy when he was protected from the elements.

Tsuna bought a can of warm tea from the vending machine nearby and sat himself down in the bleachers as the baseball team set up practice, knowing that if he tried to drink his flame-tea the grip he had on his flames would slip. He watched Bucket Man's younger clone ran around the baseball field and squashed the tiny seed of budding jealousy that rose up in him at the sight. There was a kind of liquid and boneless grace to the way Takeshi moved and he made running, throwing and hitting baseballs look effortless. Simple joy for the game and easy cheer washed off of him in waves. Seeing him like this, it was easy to picture how the other boy had become so popular; that kind of charisma was amazing. He enjoyed being around other people and was full of enough bouncy energy to put a puppy to shame.

Sipping at his can of tea Tsuna tried to imagine being able to go through life the way Takeshi did, easy in his own skin and… completely surrounded by people unknowingly attracted to his flame.

Would he have been like this if his flame never been sealed away from him?

He… didn't think he'd have enjoyed that. For one, he'd have never learned how to control his flames, not in the way he could now. Takeshi showed no sign that he even knew he had flames, let alone know how to use them. He wouldn't call the seal a blessing in disguise but it had cut down on the number of people Tsuna had to deal with on a daily basis.

More than likely his life would have continued along the same vein as it had been going in had he not been sealed. Bullies hounding him all the way to school, during class and then following him all the way home. There had been a marked difference in the number of people who bothered him when he'd had full access to his flames and now. For all the problems he'd had since, even he had to admit he'd noticed the sharp decline in the numbers since his flames had been sealed.

The _intensity_ of such incidents had also taken quite the nosedive.

People no longer got as much of a kick out of trying to bother him these days, with the majority of the ones bothering him learning he wasn't such an easy target anymore. He supposed no longer feeling the subconscious flare of his flames had a little something to do with that. Had people acted that way around Fleur Delacour before she'd managed to get some measure of control over her own allure? Poor Fleur. If he ever met a Veela he was going to offer his most sincerest sympathies. At the very least he'd figured out a way to 'turn off' the 'allure', so-to-speak. He could do whatever he wanted, so long as it didn't cost him too much energy-wise. Like let himself fade into the background like he'd always wished he'd been able to do when he was smaller. Veela, as far as he knew, couldn't do that.

There was probably an easier way to do this but Tsuna didn't have the patience to try and figure it out just yet. One of his mysteries had just dropped a lead right in front of him, if he didn't chase it now he wouldn't be able to concentrate on anything else until he'd solved it.

So for as much as he disliked letting the creeping edge of cold return him back to the time in his life before he discovered the ability to flip the seal… he could endure it for a bit. It wasn't as bad as it had been when his flames had been sealed; he knew exactly what was going on now and what he was doing. More importantly, he knew that the sensation was temporary. All he'd had to do was let his grip on the loose flames go and he'd be warm, the fire would run through his system and able to protect himself again.

Takeshi's baseball practice lasted almost three hours.

He knew this because it was the only thing he could focus on while keeping the flames in his system compacted. With only a very small amount floating freely through his system to keep him alert, he had to concentrate all his attention on either watching Takeshi or his own wrist watch. Tsuna went through three cans of tea, a packet of crisps and a candy bar before the practice game was over and everyone was packing up to go home. He visited the bathroom twice, once to actually use the facilities and then again to wash his face with warm water. Watching the practice had gotten boring somewhere in the half hour mark so he'd tried working on the homework he'd abandoned during PE but that had been a dumb idea. He'd given up trying to decipher the mathematics work sheet as impossible to finish in the condition he was in and shoved it back in his bag.

Then, when Takeshi was finally, FINALLY ready to leave, the boy abruptly took off at a fast sprint. What kind of seven year old could still _run_ after school, three hours of baseball practice, with a school bag on his back _and_ an added sports bag clanking over his shoulder? Tsuna allowed himself a bit more flame in order to keep up with the boy, but no more than he absolutely needed to make sure he didn't lose him, however when he actually caught up with the other boy— He was walking into a public park. To be greeted by a sizable group of other kids. Who were setting up for a game.

Takeshi spent _another_ two hours playing baseball.

Tsuna barely made it, he'd been desperately holding the flames inside him down for over five hours already and had actually thought about sneaking away to release his hold for a bit but had stubbornly held his ground. Surely Takeshi wouldn't stay out playing baseball all night? He had to go home at some point for dinner at some point, right? He had to be getting all that energy from _SOMEWHERE,_ right? Even Tsuna was starting to feel hungry and he'd had all those snacks just a couple of hours ago! He was close to the breaking point when everyone finally announced they were going home.

Takeshi then decided he was going to continue swinging his baseball bat around the park.

Tsuna could no longer hold back the flames and at the rate he was going Takeshi would probably still be swinging that baseball bat around for another few hours. Tsuna looked at his watch. Looked at the clock on the bathroom wall and then looked back at Takeshi again.

Who was no longer there.

Startled into darting out of the bushes he'd been hiding in, Tsuna wildly looked around for the other boy. Tsuna allowed a tiny bit more of his flame out and approached one of the onlooking parents that had been watching the kids play.

"Excuse me, did you see which way Yamamoto Takeshi went?"

The young mother who was helping her toddler into a pram gave him a distracted look. "Sorry, I was a little busy. Come back tomorrow if you want to play with him, I'm sure he'll let you, he's such a nice boy!"

Tsuna grimaced; now that he had an idea of what kind of insane schedule his Target kept he was going to have to think of another way to work on this particular mystery. He couldn't keep up with Takeshi the way he was without drawing the other kid into Sky Attraction and he didn't want to go that far.

Calling it a day, Tsuna staggered away to hide himself away in the shelter of the boy's toilets, slung his backpack to the floor and let the tight grip on his flames go. Warmth washed back through him in a strong wave, one that warmed him head to toe. He felt the flames dance over his skin, erupt from his forehead and— felt his clothes disintegrate.

Freezing stock-still, he stared wide-eyed at his reflection in the polished silver surface of the toilet door. His forehead was on fire, his eyes were glowing the hot-orange as they usually did when he was using his flames and… he was left standing in only his underwear. A pair of black boxers with multicolored polka dots all over them.

Tsuna boggled.

Snatching his bag off the floor, he flung the door open and _ran_. Home. All the way there. He didn't stop for anything. It was only when he was slamming the door to his room closed and the flame on his forehead fizzled out that he remembered something. Stumbling over to his bed, he dropped his backpack to the ground, burrowed under his blankets and _buried_ his face into his pillow in embarrassment as exhaustion swamped him.

He'd had a change of clothes in his bag. He hadn't needed to run home like a half-naked nutcase at all.

Tunnel Vision. Again. Goddamn it.

OoO

Recognizing where he'd gone wrong with trying to track Takeshi home, Tsuna reviewed his strategy and took a long, hard look at his own motivations. Approaching Takeshi for the sole purpose of using him to track down Bucket Man wouldn't be fair to the other boy at all. Tsuna also recognized his own longing, knew he'd wanted to be friends with the hazel-eyed boy before that but hadn't had any reason to push himself forward before discovering Takeshi's Flame.

Tsuna's reasons to avoid making friends were still valid; he didn't want anyone caught in the crossfire should someone come after him again. Didn't want to have to lie about where he was when he disappeared. Didn't want to leave anyone behind when he started magic school or lie about his flames. If he was being completely honest with himself, he didn't want to use his flame to sway him either. If he couldn't earn Takeshi's friendship the old fashioned way then he didn't deserve it in the first place. His own moral compass wouldn't allow him to compromise on that at all.

Coercion wasn't friendship. Couldn't take the place of friendship and just because he'd been born with the ability to draw people to him, it didn't mean he had the right to keep them, much as he might be tempted to sometimes.

He had his mother. He had Hashimoto-san looking out for him, and he had Yun-san and her son Kyouya pop into his life every now and then. Himura Saito still chased people away from him when he hid out in the library and even Detective Hibari Minoru, who turned out to be Kyouya's uncle, popped up every now and then to make sure he was okay.

Tsuna was busy anyways. He was bringing his grades up, looking for clues about his father and the old gentleman who'd called himself his grandfather. Cedef and Vongola. Magic. His flames. He was now adding hidden security measures that would tell him when someone other than himself and his mother came into the house. He was working on his Tunnel Vision and searching for Bucket Man and his restaurant, and sleeping like the dead when he wasn't doing anything else.

He didn't have the time or energy for another friend.

Besides, what would they have in common? Tsuna would end up killing himself if he joined the baseball team. He only knew enough of the sport to know you hit the ball forward and ran like hell till you reached Home Base. He was still in the process of bringing his grades up so Tsuna was still scraping the bottom of the ranking boards. They were worlds apart in social standing and imagining being surrounded by Takeshi's _other_ friends made Tsuna's head spin a little.

He'd never be able to remember all their names and some of their number included people who called him Dame-Tsuna.

Following Takeshi from behind had been an epic failure and Tsuna felt like crawling into a hole every time he remembered the consequences of squashing his flame down that hard. All that did was make his flame rush back up hotter than ever. Like it did when he flipped the lid on the seal. Possibly a bit hotter than it did when he flipped the seal because of all the squashing he'd done, he'd never had his clothes vaporize off of him before!

If Tsuna tried getting to the park where Takeshi played baseball at the end of the day and squashed his flame down _then_ … that could lead to another set of problems on its own. He could get accosted before Takeshi showed up. Takeshi could decide not to play baseball there, unlikely as this scenario was. Tsuna could get caught by Takeshi's other friends. He could end up having his clothes burned off him again… that wasn't something Tsuna wanted to repeat either. Once was enough for him thanks.

Before Tsuna could twist himself up into knots trying to figure out ways to track down where Takeshi lived without breaking his morals, too many school rules, (he'd briefly contemplated breaking into the teacher's office), or any laws, he was handed an opportunity to learn more about the kid in a friendly setting.

Sasagawa Kyoko was having a birthday party and she'd invited the entire class.

Usually, Tsuna wouldn't have touched that invitation with a barge-pole but— Sasagawa Kyoko, he recalled the last time he really remembered her. Their last significant meeting, which was when her older brother Ryohei had earned himself that scar in his eyebrow. That had to be his Tunnel Vision at work again; he'd only been peripherally aware that they shared a class.

He was so self-absorbed it wasn't even funny.

Sasagawa Kyoko didn't seem to recognize him as the blond foreigner that had helped her brother beat back the bullies from her. Thank god, but she still gave him an invitation. She gave him an adorably sweet smile at the same time, asking him if he was going to come to the party. He hadn't had the heart to give his usual excuses as she was one of the rare few people who were completely unaffected by him. She was so innocently pure that it made him feel like a heel just thinking of disappointing her. Would he be able to do so on her upcoming birthday?

Tsuna, having already been hit with Kyoko's sweetness, was dealt the finishing blow. Yamamoto Takeshi agreed to come. He now had a reason to attend. It was a legitimate way to learn more about him without exerting too much effort. If the opportunity arose he could follow Takeshi home after the party and hope the kid didn't go off to the park or something. Maybe Bucket Man would save Tsuna the effort by escorting Takeshi like the good maybe-parent Tsuna thought he was.

The party sounded like it would be the best place to gather information; all he'd have to do was show up.

He could totally handle a birthday party.

Party. He could do a party. Cake. Games. A couple of kids his age. Adults watching everyone. Hopefully watching with an eagle eye, the other kids wouldn't dare try to start anything at a birthday party! If he was lucky Takeshi might even leave early.

Easy.

OoO

His simple plan to track down Bucket Man and his restaurant by following his target home after the party started to unravel the second Tsuna brought the birthday invitation home.

His mother found it.

As far as his mother knew he'd never been invited to a birthday party before, he'd always managed to ditch the invitations before coming home from school. They'd usually been thinly disguised invitations to join the Gardening Club and the Book Club, who were still dogging his steps even after all that time spent declining invitations to the clubs. Tsuna had accepted the invitation, told himself he could always call the number on the card if he didn't want to go and had taped it to the wall near the door so he wouldn't forget about it.

Fat chance of that. His mother got so excited when she saw the glittery and ribboned invitation she'd nearly screamed. Before he realized what was happening, she'd ripped it off the wall and was down the stairs and confirming with Kyoko's mother over the phone that _"Of course Tsu-kun will come! He wouldn't miss it for the world!"_

If Tsuna hadn't already wanted to dig himself into a hole for disintegrating his clothes off of himself and then running home half-naked, this would have done it.

His mother was on the phone to Yun-san after that and Tsuna started to wonder if perhaps the adults involved in this whole fiasco were more excited than the children attending— but that was before he actually arrived at the birthday party and discovered just how wrong he was. He'd been expecting a small party. Kyoko's house. Two or three adults. A handful of kids. Some board games and a cake. What he was frog-marched into was something that blew that expectation out of the water and annihilated it.

There were screaming kids everywhere. This was more than his entire class put together. This had to be at _least_ two classroom's worth of kids! Sure there were parents but they were all on the sidelines with cameras and doing nothing to tame the wild romping. There was a cake but it was easily as large as the table holding it. Loud, bouncy music. Equally loud laughter. Streamers. Balloons and confetti all over the place.

Looking at the table of presents holding the birthday girl's gifts, Tsuna's own carefully-wrapped gift, a pair of hair-clips decorated with plastic sunflowers, was suddenly too simple a gift. Even with the live flowers he'd brought with him. He was overdressed for the party too; every other boy was wearing shorts and tee-shirts or sneakers with jeans. His mother had went out and bought him dress shoes and pants, a charcoal blazer and crisp white shirt. She'd even tried to slick his hair back, though that hadn't done much more than tame it a little.

Feeling his spirit start to quail, Tsuna did an about-face on instinct and walked into his mother's legs.

"Tsu-kun~! Don't be shy~! Look, say hello to Kyoko-chan! Happy birthday, sweetie~!" His mother cooed over his shoulder as she knelled down to his level.

Oh god. No. This was not happening. He— he was NOT shy damn it! He just didn't want to be eaten alive by the unholy menagerie Kyoko had invited over to the event hall her parents had hired to set the party up in! Feeling his face burn through several shades of red, Tsuna thrust his gift at the birthday girl with the armful of sunflowers he'd cut from the garden.

" _Happybirthdaysasagawasan,"_ he mumbled in a rush and swept the large room for exits with frantic eyes.

"Oh! These are so cute! Can I wear them now?" Kyoko asked, having eagerly torn into her gift when presented with it. She was all dolled up like a little princess, her dress was a lacy white and pink fluttery mass of fabric; she was also wearing a little sparkling rhinestone tiara and had white glittering wings made out of stockings and wire pinned to her back.

Tsuna nodded jerkily, not trusting himself enough to speak. He'd only been here for less than three minutes and he already wanted out.

"Thank you, Tsuna-kun!" Kyoko chirped, clipping them into place with a bright smile. She then did something terrible.

She kissed his cheek.

Adults cooed and laughed.

The little girls giggled.

His male peers— did not.

Accepting that birthday invitation might have been a mistake. Sasagawa Kyoko was popular among the boys in the same way Yamamoto Takeshi was popular with the girls and she had just kissed him on the cheek. He'd be safe for now, everyone was on their best behaviour, it was a birthday party and all the adults were watching. Hopefully something would happen between now and Monday before class so that everyone would forget that little kiss had even happened, he didn't fancy being eaten alive by his male classmates.

Kyoko giggled and spun around and back into the party to flitter around like the social butterfly she was, leaving Tsuna with his mother. That would have been fine with him if his mother had actually let him continue hiding behind her legs. Unfortunately, she decided he was being too 'shy' and gently pushed him out into the mess of children.

"Go play now, Tsu-kun, mama is going to go find Yun-san!"

Abandoned by his own mother to survive the wilds of Sasagawa Kyoko's birthday party, what was the world coming to? And he was spending way too much time colouring stories with Hibari Kyouya if this was where his brain went when he panicked.

Play? Play where? There were kids glaring at him at all sides of the hall! It wasn't like he'd asked her to kiss his cheek! Also their fault for buying gifts too big to open immediately if they wanted it! He gave the hall another look over, still looking for exits but this time looking at the different play areas and games set up.

There was a balloon castle in the corner Tsuna wasn't going to go near. A long table across the entire length of the room that was probably set up for kids when it was time to cut the cake. He tried hiding under a table at the far end of the hall but a little girl with long, wavy dark hair hissed at him when he tried crawling underneath.

"Go find your own spot _monkey_ ; I found this place first!" Kurokawa Hana spat, looking frazzled, annoyed and like she was a hair's breadth away from defending her territory with claws. "Should have said no! Can't believe I said yes! Never again! Knew there were going to be monkeys everywhere! Can't be content with just one or two, she has to invite the entire neighborhood—"

Tsuna crawled back out from under the table as fast as he'd gone under. She clearly needed the space more than he did.

Okay, there had to be more places than just that one spot.

Parents were watching the presents table and wouldn't let any kid near there that wasn't the birthday girl herself. There was a colouring table but the kids there weren't colouring peacefully like he did with Kyouya, they were jumping up and down in their seats, throwing pencils and crayons, ripping up paper and generally being crazy. He wasn't going to apple-bob either and as tempting as the fairy floss looked he'd rather not wait in line. Not with that glaring group.

Damn it, Kurokawa had found the perfect spot to hide; no one was going to disturb her there! Tsuna was contemplating the merits of snagging some of the candy from one of the tables to bribe her with into sharing her hiding spot when he found the perfect place.

There were large silver barrels that stood taller than Tsuna that were filled half full with ice and water arranged in a row with soft drinks inside them. Adults only went near when they needed pull out a new bottle or to bring one back. There was a gap between the barrels and the wall large enough to hide him. He'd even brought a book with him and he could peer around the barrels to look for Yamamoto whenever he wanted.

He went unnoticed until about halfway through the party, whereupon Hibari Minoru spotted him peeking around his hiding place. The man took one look at where he was hiding, shrugged off his jacket and dropped it around him to wear. "Look after this for me?" The man asked, loosening his tie as if he were overheated. "I have a feeling if I put it down somewhere without making sure someone is watching it, I might lose it."

Giving the man a look that conveyed how much he believed this thinly veiled excuse to make him more comfortable, Tsuna snorted. "Okay, but it'll cost you."

"Oh? Do tell?" Minoru smirked, so highly amused in that moment that he looked exactly like an older version of his nephew.

"Bottle of tea, I saw one of the adults put one back earlier." Tsuna mock-demanded, pointing up at one of the barrels he was hiding behind.

"You drive a hard bargain, deal!" the man snickered as he leaned over the barrel and fished out the bottle in question. "Would you like fries with that?"

"… they have food that isn't sugar?"

Minoru snorted and vanished for a bit, returning with a small basket of fries and chicken nuggets that he held onto for a bit. "Let's do an exchange, food for information."

"What kind of information?" Tsuna asked warily, eyeing the food offered with a critical eye. None of it that was worth talking about the Hitman for.

"Have you seen Kyouya anywhere?"

"No, I haven't seen him, he's probably _hiding_ somewhere like a sane person! Also why would you even _bring_ him here?" Tsuna gaped, horrified at the idea of his maybe-friend also trapped somewhere in this horrific so-called party.

"It's called 'socializing' and I didn't, his mother did. I'm just here 'cause his father is in Tokyo and made me promise to keep an eye on them."

"… I can try to find him for you? Later though. Just— please pretend you didn't see me."

"Saw who, where?" Minoru asked airily, looking up and away even as he handed the basket of bribery over. The man straightened up and left, looking for all the world like he'd been talking to himself the whole time.

Tsuna snuggled under the jacket for a while and let the sounds of the insanity roll off of him like water off a duck's back now that he could somewhat enjoy himself. That half bottle of sweetened oolong tea the Detective had gotten for him went a long way into soothing his frazzled nerves. Tsuna snarfed down a few chicken nuggets and a handful of fries, and wondered how Kyouya had even gotten invited. Had Ryohei given out invitations too? It would explain the sheer mass of kids, more than half of them being older than the birthday girl herself.

Poor Kyouya, he must be feeling miserable wherever he'd holed himself up at. He probably didn't have anything to distract him with, and since his uncle hadn't found him yet he probably didn't have anything to eat either. Speaking of people in hiding… Kurokawa was hiding too. Tsuna squirmed guiltily until he decided he could probably visit her without too much trouble and see how she was doing. Maybe she'd seen where he went, might be worth visiting her to ask now that he had a bribe. He wasn't about to eat that much fries and chicken himself. He might ask her if she'd seen Kyouya, it was worth a shot and if she _did_ know then it would be catching two fishes with one net.

The arrival of a clown gave Tsuna the opportunity to move without being noticed too much and he bolted out of hiding with his bounty of bribery material. When he made it to the table she was hidden under he leaned close and carefully lifted the dark blue table cloth.

"What? Didn't I tell you to find you own place? Go away or I'll bite _you_!" Kurokawa hissed, every inch on the defensive.

" C… can you bite this instead?" Tsuna stuttered, he pushed the basket of fries and chicken nuggets under the table cloth. He coughed, trying not to feel so much like he was dying inside at the way he'd stuttered the beginning he hoped his face wasn't as flushed as it felt. He was so wired he felt like he'd snap if he bent the wrong way. He'd have almost preferred a kidnapping to attending another party like this! "I got a question, have you seen Hibari Kyouya?" he asked, pulling up the table cloth to gingerly look her in the eye. "Ah, do you know who that is? He's two years older than us and—"

Kurokawa whisked the basket under the table cloth and then yanked him under without any more warning than that, he had to catch himself rather quickly in order not to overbalance and faceplant. "Everyone knows Hibari Kyouya." She replied, ignoring his flailing to daintily pick a chicken nugget out of the basket that was now in her lap. She nibbled the fried crust off it before eating the actual chicken. "Monkey kicked me out of my first hiding spot, the table inside the entrance hall."

"Thanks…" He mumbled, crawling weakly back out from under the table. That had been mildly terrifying; he hadn't expected her to yank him under like that at all.

Tsuna made a pit stop at the colouring table where he swiped the first bit of stray paper he could get his hands on, a crayon and a rubber band. He scribbled a quick note about Kyouya's possible location, folded the note up into a pellet and used the rubber band to send the message flying across the room to the boy's uncle where it hit him in the arm. He mimed for the man to read it when the man tracked where the projectile had come from and then hastily ducked back behind his barrels.

No one else noticed in the chaos.

Mission accomplished, or at least _one_ mission accomplished. He had yet to locate the _original_ person he'd been looking out for. Stupid, should have asked Kurokawa if she'd seen Takeshi… Then again he didn't want anyone knowing he wanted to make friends with— he didn't want anyone knowing he was stalking Takeshi to discover what his relationship to Bucket Man was. Right. He wasn't making friends with Takeshi. That wasn't the plan. He was just going to follow him for a bit and without making contact. Easier on him and fair to both parties. He was going to stick to his plan because if he didn't make plans things went sideways like it had here. He was never going to another one of Sasagawa's parties ever again. Kurokawa was right, this was insane!

Snuggling back under Detective Minoru's jacket, Tsuna went back to his book and keeping and lookout, only deeming it safe enough to venture out when cake was being served and everyone was behaving in order to be served their slice. Tsuna lined up for a plate and was about to return to his spot when he realized Kurokawa hadn't abandoned her spot. Not even for cake.

Chocolate cake with buttercream and iced in ganache, whipped chocolate swirls on the top with sprinkles and glace cherries. With the cake being cut, you could smell it all over the room. Minoru looked like he was ferrying a piece of cake out to Kyouya so that was taken care of but…

Looking around to make sure no one was paying attention Tsuna slid his plate under Hana's table and took a quick peek to make sure she noticed it.

"… this doesn't make us friends." Kurokawa mumbled as she dragged the plate towards her.

"Stay strong, I think we might just make it." He whispered, making sure the tablecloth was still hiding her as he retreated.

"Famous last words…" the girl muttered and Tsuna grinned for the first time that night. He went back for another plate, feeling mildly better about being forced to attend a party he hadn't wanted to really go to.

Looking for a spot to sit that wouldn't have him dropping the cake on himself he searched the busy table for a place to sit at and took a gamble when a one opened up at the main table. The birthday girl had apparently finished her heaping serve of cake in record time and was off to the bouncy-castle while it was still empty enough to be enjoyed.

He carefully slid his plate onto the table, sat himself down while making sure the people he was sitting next to didn't get jostled and picked up his spoon. He turned the plate around to view the entire slice, chose a spot and dug in with gusto. It was a long time since he'd enjoyed a good chocolate cake and he'd been looking forward to this the entire night!

Looking to his right, Tsuna searched the table full of kids for Takeshi and blinked when a hand reached out and grabbed his left hand. Turning to see who'd grabbed his hand Tsuna gave Mochida Kensuke a quizzical look that was lost to the boy's closed eyes.

"Kyoko-chan… I— I've been meaning to say this to you for— for the longest time!"

Tsuna's eyes widened. Mochida didn't know Kyoko had gotten up already and Tsuna couldn't tell him because he'd just stuffed his mouth full of cake! This wasn't what he thought it was, was it? This couldn't be Mochida trying to _Confess_ to Kyoko was it? Kyoko was _seven_ , Mochida was _nine_! He was WAY too young to be thinking about romance! Why was he even trying to confess in front of everyone anyway!

Mochida's hand was shaking over the insanely tight grip he had on Tsuna's left hand and in any other position than the one he was in right now he'd have found the older boy's bravery commendable. Right now though he was just desperately trying to chew his way through a mouthful of cake. Tsuna dropped the spoon in his right hand and lunged for a pile of napkins in the center of the table, meaning to spit out the mouthful so he could clear up the misunderstanding before—

Mistaking the tug at his hand for Kyoko trying to get away Mochida pulled him back, finally letting go of his left hand but whipping out to catch Tsuna's face with both hands. How was he doing that with both eyes close— _**"KYOKO-CHAN! I LOVE YOU! PLEASE GO OUT WITH ME!"**_

Tsuna couldn't clear his mouthful of cake in time to warn Mochida of the mistake. He was roughly pulled up and forward into a parody of a passionate—

Kiss.

Tsuna kicked and clawed to get away from the iron grip the older boy had on his face but Mochida didn't release him until help came from an unexpected direction. Kyouya swooped in out of nowhere and booted Mochida away from him with a powerful looking flying high kick.

" _ **I'LL BITE YOU TO DEATH!"**_

Tsuna gagged and scrabbled at the table, grabbed the wad of napkins he'd been reaching for and spat the now sodden mouthful of cake out of his mouth. Tears gathered at the corner of his eyes as he coughed his throat clear and he scrubbed them away even as he tried to tell himself that was from nearly asphyxiating.

" _ **KYOUYA! NO!"**_ he heard Detective Minoru shout over the sounds of abrupt chaos as everyone reacted at once.

" _ **KYOUYA! YES!"**_ Hibari Yun screamed over everyone else. _ **"PROTECT TSUNA-KUN!"**_

Kids ran and screamed. Adults ran forward to grab their kids or contain the pandemonium. Tsuna scrubbed at his face and lips with more napkins and bolted out of the hall, ignoring the shouts and sounds of chaos he left behind in his wake.

He was never, ever, never going to another birthday party again!

OoO

Adamantly refusing to go to school for a solid week, Tsuna spent the time he had on his hands out of the house and away from his giggling mother, doubling down on the amount of internet searching he was doing. She cooed over his 'first kiss' like it had been something adorably cute and not hugely traumatizing.

Tsuna couldn't eat a single bite of chocolate without remembering the complete and utter fiasco after that.

The only good thing that came out of his refusal to go to school for the week was the arrival of a laptop. It was apparently a gift from his father after his mother had phoned the man about all the time he spent in internet cafes. Workmen came into the house, set up an internet connection, gave his mother the password and left. The computer came out of the box already set up and loaded with more security than he'd ever heard of on a laptop but Tsuna didn't mind. He now had portable access to the internet.

The only catch? His mother kept the password as insurance that he would actually go to school the next day. Bribery money, so to speak. Fine. He could pretend it never happened. Ignore anyone who brought up the incident. He was Slytherin enough to know a good deal when he heard it. He endured the teasing and the catcalls he got when he returned to school and weathered it out like it was something he didn't care about. In return he got the password. A password he changed immediately the second he figured out how.

The one thing he couldn't ignore?

Fate was MOCKING him.

The day after getting the password from his mother, Tsuna picked up the newspaper on the kitchen table to throw it in the recycling after breakfast when a pamphlet slipped out of it and onto the floor. When he went to pick it up, the picture on the front had him freezing.

There on the front cover of the little piece of folded paper was Bucket Man, posing with the two other workers and more beside them. Yamamoto Takeshi was standing in front of the group dressed in a traditional Japanese chef outfit. Behind them was the restaurant Tsuna had searched for this whole time.

The pamphlet had the name of the restaurant, Takesushi. A phone number. A little map and it even had the owner's name and a blurb about the family owned business. Yamamoto Tsuyoshi was the owner and he ran the store with the help of his team and young son Yamamoto Takeshi.

Slumping forwards in his chair Tsuna started hitting his head against the surface of the table.

He really hated his life sometimes.


End file.
